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Dantes seized the handles, and strove to lift the coffer; it was impossible. He sought to open it; lock and padlock were fastened; these faithful guardians seemed unwilling to surrender their trust. Dantes inserted the sharp end of the pickaxe between the coffer and the lid, and pressing with all his force on the handle, burst open the fastenings.
When he rode into the corral at the ranch he saw that another sign had been put on the corral wall. He had destroyed the first, speaking his mind in full at the time. He swept his gloved hand upward with a rush, tore the flimsy board from its fastenings, broke it to pieces across his saddle, and tossed the fragments from him.
Perhaps there was some way of climbing up by it and entering the house. But the pipe was dilapidated and past service, and hardly hung to its fastenings. Moreover, all the windows of this silent dwelling were grated with heavy iron bars, even the attic windows in the roof.
The cloak was handed him, and he placed his wallet upon it as though it were very heavy indeed. Then he crouched down and fumbled with the leather fastenings. The outlaws also bent over and watched the proceeding closely, lest he should hide some of the money on his person. Presently he got the bag unfastened and plunged his hands into it.
He noted with a quick glance that there was no cross bar of heavy wood nor any sockets in which such a bar could be dropped. The windows were small. There was no glass. Solid wooden shutters hung outside and closed with a single hook and eye for fastenings. The sun was setting before the surveying party stopped work.
The fierce breakers burst rather over her quarter; had they swept quite broadside over her, the boat would have been torn from its fastenings long before. As the Deal lifeboat stood in towards the Goodwins, they saw that their noble rivals the Ramsgate tug and lifeboat in tow had arrived on the scene a few minutes before them, and were close to the wreck.
For even before the sound of the shattering explosion reached our ears we saw her fore topmast fall, saw long tongues of flame leap up from her decks, saw her-two funnels whirl over and fall, one after the other, while her bridge, pilot-house, and foremast soared high into the air; and so tremendous was the force of the explosion that actually one of her 6-inch gun turrets was torn bodily from its strong fastenings and hurled some twenty feet aloft, to crash downward again upon the hapless ship's deck, while a great burst of flame, probably due to the explosion of her boilers, shot up where her two funnels had stood a moment before.
In another moment Woodburn came up, and burst into the house, where he found the settler and his wife eagerly running out the rope of their bedstead, which had been hastily stripped of the bed and clothing, and the fastenings cut, for the purpose.
He proceeded to unlock, the fastenings of the little box, which was made of some dark metal resembling iron, and was deeply as well as richly embossed on the lid and sides with quaint figures and devices. Mr Hazlit had acquired a grand, free-handed way of manipulating treasure.
The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat.
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