Sulphur here, saltpetre at home, charcoal to be had for the burning, my thoughts ran like lightning over the possibilities thrust into my unwitting hand. Powder? To be sure I could make powder! I would make a ton of it—all we wanted and more! I would provide myself with a keg or two and take it along with me when I left in my boat to escape. But how I would use it, what I could do with the dangerous stuff, when once I had it—having no guns and no cannon—this was more than I could tell. Indeed this part of the proposition floored me at once, but with a ready refuge in postponing the working out of this trifling problem, I dismissed it from my brain completely and had my fellows assist me in breaking off enough of the purest of the mineral to fill two baskets heaping full.
Two Links were required to each basket, when it came to bearing this cargo away, but I meditated that some wholesome labour was precisely what they needed. We reached the old camp shortly. There were the rocks thrown up to cover the mouth of the cave, which had threatened to be our tomb, but the grass and ferns had overgrown the spot and much of the rock heaps, to such an extent that no one could have guessed that a camp or a fire had ever been located in or about the clearing.
The ravine, where the tribe had buried its dead, presented its former appearance. We set to work without delay and in less than thirty minutes the pebbles were accumulating with gratifying rapidity. I was careful to select the ones best suited to our sundry requirements. Those in some of the baskets I covered with soil, in order to keep their moisture from departing before we should have the time necessary to split them and chip out the arrow-heads, axes and knives.
It was something of a giant task to convey our baskets away, when I finally had them loaded to my satisfaction, but the Links were tremendously strong, and all were willing to make the greatest possible exertion, that day, to gratify my wishes. We ate a lunch of fruits and some cold meat which I had carried along, after which we made a “bee-line” for home. But I fear that any self-respecting bee would have been much ashamed of such a line as ours became before we issued forth from the trees, at last, in sight of the hill.
When we arrived, a great surprise was in store for all. Grin, the fawner, had disappeared—run away. The news was received with indifference by the chief, and with evident gladness by not a few of the others. When at last it was made intelligible to me, I knew not whether to rejoice or to be concerned and suspicious of something impending.
CHAPTER XXIV
EXPERIMENTAL GUNPOWDER
Our work of creating things of flint began that same day, although the afternoon was far advanced when we arrived. I was in a fever to complete our preparations against any future aggressions on the part of the enemy, particularly as I had a growing conviction that Grin, the deserter and treacherous devil, had gone straight away to hunt for the Blacks. I believed his sole intention was that of betraying his kind and thereby of wreaking a vengeance for all the punishments which he had rightfully undergone.
All the questions I could ask about the fellow, through the medium of my few words in Linkish and my signs, which were supplemented by my native language, failed to elicit any satisfactory information. Having too much to do to spend my time in thinking of the beast, I set my selected assistants to work at splitting out slabs of flint.
The greater part of the pebbles, I had my fellows bury in a moist, shady place, for, labour as diligently as we might, we could not complete the work on a third of the stone, as I knew, before the hot air would begin to render the stuff as hard as glass and quite unworkable.
During all next day we were at it, hammering, chipping and forming. Four fellows, clever at binding were heading the arrows already provided, and lashing hatchets and knives to handles. That night, by way of a pleasant diversion, I secured some fragments of charcoal, and reducing this and some of my sulphur and nitre to a flour, mixed the three together and ground the grayish substance for a time, between two stones. Such a dust arose that I was obliged to sprinkle the stuff with a few drops of water. This seemed to help it in combining, but do my best, I could not make the mixture resemble gunpowder in the slightest degree. Having just about decided to give the task over, as one presenting difficulties too great for me to cope with successfully, I took a palm-full of my material and, by way of experiment, threw it on the fire.