“Not a bit, foolish girl. Pack old Dame Jellicot into the embrasure of yonder window,” said the knight, “on that side of the door, and we will ensconce ourselves on this, and we shall have time to finish my explanation, for they have bungling engineers. We had a clever French fellow at Newark would have done the job in the firing of a pistol.”
They had scarce got into the place of security when the knight proceeded with his description.—“The petard being formed, as I tell you, is secured with a thick and strong piece of plank, termed the madrier, and the whole being suspended, or rather secured against the gate to be forced—But thou mindest me not?”
“How can I, Sir Henry,” she said, “within reach of such a thing as you speak of?—O Lord! I shall go mad with very terror—we shall be crushed—blown up—in a few minutes!”
“We are secure from the explosion,” replied the knight, gravely, “which will operate chiefly in a forward direction into the middle of the chamber; and from any fragments that may fly laterally, we are sufficiently guarded by this deep embrasure.”
“But they will slay us when they enter,” said Phœbe.
“They will give thee fair quarter, wench,” said Sir Henry; “and if I do not bestow a brace of balls on that rogue engineer, it is because I would not incur the penalty inflicted by martial law, which condemns to the edge of the sword all persons who attempt to defend an untenable post. Not that I think the rigour of the law could reach Dame Jellicot or thyself, Phœbe, considering that you carry no arms. If Alice had been here she might indeed have done somewhat, for she can use a birding-piece.”
Phœbe might have appealed to her own deeds of that day, as more allied to feats of mêlée and battle, than any which her young lady ever acted; but she was in an agony of inexpressible terror, expecting, from the knight’s account of the petard, some dreadful catastrophe, of what nature she did not justly understand, notwithstanding his liberal communication on the subject.
“They are strangely awkward at it,” said Sir Henry; “little Boutirlin would have blown the house up before now.—Ah! he is a fellow would take the earth like a rabbit—if he had been here, never may I stir but he would have countermined them ere now, and
—‘’Tis sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard.’
as our immortal Shakspeare has it.”