“No, sir, nor ’urt,” continued my faithful groom, hastening to relieve my mind; “you’ve no need to alarm yourself, sir, for we’re all alive and ’earty, though I must say it’s about the wust buster, sir, that you’ve yet turned out of ’ands. It sent in the kitchen winders as if they’d bin made of tissue paper, sir, an’ cook she went into highstericks in the coal-bunker, Margaret she swounded in the scullery, and Mary went into fits in the wash’us. But they’re all right again, sir,—only raither skeery ever since. We ’ad some trouble in puttin’ it out, for the cumbustibles didn’t seem to care much for water. We got it under at last, early this morning.”
“This morning?”
“Yes, sir. It blow’d up about two hours arter you left for London, an’ we’ve bin at it ever since. We was so glad your mother was away, sir, for it did make an uncommon crack. I was just sayin’ to cook, not ’alf an hour since, the master would have enjoyed that, he would; it was such a crusher.”
“Any of—of—the torpedo left, Lancey?” I asked, with some hesitation.
“The torpedo, sir. Bless your ’art, it went up to the ’eavens like a sky-rocket, an’ blowed the out-’ouse about to that extent that you couldn’t find a bit big enough to pick your teeth with.”
On hearing this I roused myself, and hastened to the scene of devastation.
One glance sufficed. The spot on which my laboratory had stood was a blackened heap of rubbish!
“Now, mother,” said I next day, after relieving her mind by a full and rapid account of what had happened, “there is nothing that I know of to detain me at home. I will therefore see to having the yacht got ready, and we shall all go to sea without delay.”