"First of all," said I, "we shall have to break the powder-barrels out of the magazine and hoist them on deck. There are tackles, I suppose?"
"You should be able to find what you want among the boatswain's stores in the run," he replied.
"There are some splits wide enough to receive a whole barrel of powder," said I. "I counted four such yawns all happily lying in a line athwart the ice past the bows. I propose to sink these barrels twenty feet deep, where they must hang from a piece of spar across the aperture."
He nodded.
"Have you any slow-matches aboard?"
"Plenty among the gunner's stores," he replied.
"There are but you and me," said I; "these operations will take time. We must mind not to be blown up by one barrel whilst we are suspending another. We shall have to lower the barrels with their matches on fire and they must be timed to burn an hour."
"Ay, certainly, at least an hour," he exclaimed. "Two hours would be better."
"Well, that must depend upon the number of parcels of matches we meet with. There will be a good many mines to spring, and one must not explode before another. 'Tis the united force of the several blasts which we must reckon on. The contents of at least four more barrels of powder we must distribute amongst the other chinks and splits in such parcels as they will be able to receive."
"And then?"