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To add to their original difficulties, the lovers had now to contend against the circumstances of time and place, for during the winter, from most of the men being on shore and without occupation, conviviality and merriment were rife among them, and from Bell-ringing Night, which ushered in Gun-powder Plot, until Valentine's Day was passed, revels, dances or amusements of any kind which brought people together were welcomed and well attended.
The Rebel army was unfolding its front, and the battle was steadily advancing in our direction. We could begin to see the blue rings of smoke curling upward among the trees off to the right, and the pungent smell of burning gun-powder filled the air. And there we stood, in the edge of the woods, so still, waiting for the storm to break on us. I know mighty well what I was thinking about then.
The viscount put his two full hands close to my lantern ... I stooped to look ... and at once threw away the lantern with such violence that it broke and went out, leaving us in utter darkness. What I had seen in M. de Chagny's hands ... was gun-powder!
He was on the gun-powder order, I can tell you; bound to make a fizz wherever he went, always popping up in odd places, and frightening nervous old ladies, and little two-year-olders, who had ventured away from their mothers' apron strings. Every cat and dog, for ten miles round, made for the nearest port when Hal and his torn straw hat loomed up in the distance.
For Dr Johnson gave him this character: 'Sir, he is a civil man, and a wise man. From an erroneous apprehension of violence, Dr Johnson had provided a pair of pistols, some gun-powder, and a quantity of bullets: but upon being assured we should run no risk of meeting any robbers, he left his arms and ammunition in an open drawer, of which he gave my wife the charge.
He would fiddle around manufacturing gun-powder and trying to improve upon it until some one blew him up with his own invention. He wasn't practical. He never would get anywhere without a balance-wheel without some one to direct his energies. Perry needed me and I needed him. If we were going to do anything for Pellucidar we must be free to do it together.
To those who were alarmed at such "waste," he remarked that gun-powder was meant to be burned, and that sailors must learn to shoot, since in battle, the shots that hit are the only ones that count. There is nothing wonderful about such remarks. In looking back at them there seems to be nothing wonderful about many things that he said and did.
Colonel Stephens reported very disagreeable news from Boston. It was to the effect that General Gage had fired on the people at Cambridge. Later we learned that while some gun-powder and two cannon had been seized by His Majesty's troops there had been no massacre of the provincials. But while the rumor remained uncontradicted it caused high excitement and great rage.
We determined therefore to keep her company till night, and then to lose her, after which to make the best of our way to the harbour where we had left our prize, to secure her. We had engaged this ship first and last about seven glasses, during which we in the Duke had eleven men wounded, three of whom were scorched with gun-powder.
We had had the precaution to hang at the top of the mast, the gun-powder and pistols which we had brought from the frigate. We made signals by burning a large quantity of cartridges; we even fired some pistols, but it seems the fire we saw, was nothing but an error of vision, or, perhaps, nothing more than the sparkling of the waves.
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