“Excellent, father,” replied Fawkes: “and you were right in saying that at the very moment we were indulging in misgiving, Heaven was preparing for us a victory by unforeseen and mysterious means.”
Garnet raised his hands gratefully and reverentially upwards. And the other conspirators crowded round Fawkes to listen to his relation.
“The noise we heard,” he said, “arose from a very simple circumstance,—and when you hear it, you will smile at your fears. But you will not smile at the result to which it has led. Exactly overhead, it appears, a cellar is situated, belonging to a person named Bright, and the sound was occasioned by the removal of his coals, which he had been selling off.”
“Is that all?” cried Catesby. “We are indeed grown childish, to be alarmed by such a cause.”
“It appears slight now it is explained,” observed Keyes, gravely; “but how were we to know whence it arose?”
“True,” returned Fawkes; “and I will now show you how the hand of Heaven has been manifested in the matter. The noise which led me to this investigation, and which I regard as a signal from on high, brought me to a cellar I had never seen before, and knew not existed. That cellar lies immediately beneath the House of Lords."
“Ah! I see!” exclaimed Catesby. “You think it would form a good depository for the powder.”
“If it had been built for the express purpose, it could not be better," returned Fawkes. “It is commodious and dry, and in an out-of-the-way place, as you may judge, when we ourselves have never hitherto noticed it.”
“But what is all this to us, if we cannot use it?” returned Catesby.
“We can use it,” replied Fawkes. “It is ours.”