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Updated: June 16, 2025
He himself had charge of the linstock, about which was wound several matches, consisting of lengths of twisted cotton wick steeped in lye. They had already been lighted, for they burnt so slowly that they would last for several hours. "Now, we're shipshape," said Bulger. "Mind you, Burke, don't come to far for'ard with your linstock. I don't want the train fired with no sparks afore I'm ready.
What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!" He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. "Hold the light higher!" he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. "Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see!
And now the time, according to Billy Waters' judgment, having come for sending a shot, he stood ready, linstock in hand, watching the lieutenant, whose one eye was gazing intently through the long leather-covered glass. "Fire!" he said at last. "Well ahead!"
"An' is it to rayport mesilf to that omahdaun ye're afther axin me, sor?" he said scornfully, tossing his head and leering out of his little pig eyes in the most comical way. "Faix, I'd rayther not, wid your favour, sor. I wouldn't demane mesilf by spakin' to the loikes ov Sarjent Linstock, sor!"
Within the courtyard were twenty-five thousand of the best troops in the world of every arm, and a park of ordnance charged to the muzzle frowned upon the dense masses which swarmed the Place du Carrousel. The watchful artilleryman stood at his cannon's breech, with the lighted linstock in his hand, which he kept alive by constant motion.
A shower of balls from the marines piped through the air or rapped up against the planks, but the boat was tossing and jerking in the short choppy waves and to aim was impossible. In vain the men tugged and strained at their oars while the gunner worked like a maniac to relight his linstock and to replace his priming.
Stand to thy linstock, gunner; let thy cannon Play such a peal, as if a paynim foe Came stretch'd in turban'd ranks to storm the ramparts. We will have pageants too but that craves wit, And I'm a rough-hewn soldier.
Suddenly the captain waved his hand above his head, glancing up at the Fort where, under the folds of the British standard, stood Trevor, linstock in hand.
One spark one touch of the linstock on the breech and those two brave fellows' bodies would be blown to atoms; and, as I expected that every moment such would be the case, my knees knocked together; but the next moment I was down on those shaking knees, my piece made ready, and a good aim taken, so that I could have dropped one of the gunners before he was able to fire.
"A mine full charged with gunpowder," answered Crevecoeur, "to which, I fear, it is my fate to bring the kindled linstock. Your news and mine are like flax and fire, which cannot meet without bursting into flame, or like certain chemical substances which cannot be mingled without an explosion.
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