Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a
hole in it with his knife, and attached the fuse. When it was
well alight he and his two companions took to their heels, and
were some distance off, safe and snug in a sheltering ditch,
before the shattering roar of the explosion, with the low, deep
rumble of the collapsing building, told them that their work was
done. No cleaner job had ever been carried out in the
bloodstained annals of the society.
But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out
should all have gone for nothing! Warned by the fate of the
various victims, and knowing that he was marked down for
destruction, Chester Wilcox had moved himself and his family only
the day before to some safer and less known quarters, where a
guard of police should watch over them. It was an empty house
which had been torn down by the gunpowder, and the grim old
colour sergeant of the war was still teaching discipline to the
miners of Iron Dike.
"Leave him to me," said McMurdo. "He's my man, and I'll get him
sure if I have to wait a year for him."
A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so
for the time the matter ended.
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