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Nor need we so much marvel at the heroism of that army officer, who challenged his personal foe to bestride a barrel of powder with him the match to be placed between them and be blown up in good company, for it is pretty certain that the whole earth itself is a vast hogshead, full of inflammable materials, and which we are always bestriding; at the same time, that all good Christians believe that at any minute the last day may come and the terrible combustion of the entire planet ensue.
"I have on a heavy serge skirt and shall not miss it." Cotton is almost as inflammable as paper. Carefully, Madge, Phil and the deaf and dumb boy made another pile of little and big sticks just outside the door they desired to burn down. Miss Jenny Ann's petticoat lay, as a sacrifice, underneath the pyre. The skirt started a splendid blaze.
In crossing over to Malacca he fell in with a large junk, or country vessel, which he engaged and attempted to board, but the enemy, setting fire to a quantity of inflammable oleaginous matter, he was deterred from his design, with a narrow escape of the destruction of his own ship.
But it is always the unexpected that happens. Some receptacle with inflammable contents which the fire had overlooked probably it was stored in one of the upper rooms exploded with terrific violence. Roof, rafters, tiles, brickwork, shot into the air and fell in every direction. Sally with many others was sent prostrate by the shock, but was uninjured.
Fortunately it was low water at the time, and the weather was calm. Had it been otherwise, the rock would have been no place of refuge. When they reached the rock, a terrific spectacle was witnessed. The lighthouse was enveloped in flames nearly to the bottom, for the outside planking, being caulked and covered with pitch, was very inflammable.
And no sooner had the city been rudely awakened to the perilous presence, in overwhelming numbers, of ignorant and inflammable foreigners than these turned up and presumed to lead the revolt, to make capital out of it, to interpret it in terms of an exotic and degenerate creed. Hampton would take care of itself or else the sovereign state within whose borders it was would take care of it.
One smoke-puff was a signal for attention; two puffs indicated that the sender would camp at that place. Three puffs showed that the sender was in danger, as the enemy was near. Fire-arrows shot across the sky at night had a similar meaning. The head of the arrow was dipped in some highly inflammable substance and then set on fire at the instant before it was discharged from the bow.
"Everything was prepared beforehand on the supposition that there might be an alarm.... The hat-box ... the tissue paper ... the bank-notes: they must all have been steeped in some inflammable liquid. He must have thrown a match, a chemical preparation or what not into it, as we were leaving." "But we should have seen him, hang it all!
The idiot in discontent, or even in mere folly, may seize a lighted candle, burn petroleum, as she did in Paris of late, and set the whole palace on fire. And more, the very dirt is in itself inflammable, and capable, as it festers, of spontaneous combustion. How many a stately house has been burnt down ere now, simply by the heating of greasy rags, thrust away in some neglected closet.
It consisted of a vast quantity of inflammable matter in the air, which seemed to ascend from all parts of the horizon, and then to pour itself towards the earth, in immense fiery rays and balls. Karpik and his people, who first saw the phenomenon, ran to Hopedale in the greatest agitation and amazement, and awakened the Esquimaux there, with the awful intelligence that the world was at an end.
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