ht
over a hundred 8-inch shells, all loaded with the fuses fixed, while
spare fuses and slow matches and port-fires in profusion lay heaped
beside the shells.

By this time my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness of the
mosque, and I took in my position and my danger at a glance. Here I was
up to my knees in powder,--in the very bowels of a magazine with a
naked light! My hair literally stood on end; I felt the skin of my head
lifting my feather bonnet off my scalp; my knees knocked together, and
despite the chilly night air the cold perspiration burst out all over me
and ran down my face and legs. I had neither cloth nor handkerchief in
my pocket, and there was not a moment to be lost, as already the
overhanging wick of the _chirag_ was threatening to shed its smouldering
red tip into the live magazine at my feet with consequences too
frightful to contemplate. Quick as thought I put my left hand under the
down-dropping flame, and clasped it with a grasp of determination;
holding it firmly I slowly turned to the door, and walked out with my
knees knocking one against the other! Fear had so overcome all other
feeling that I am confident I never felt the least pain from grasping
the burning wick till after I was outside the building and once again in
the open air; but when I opened my hand I felt the smart acutely enough.
I poured the oil out of the lamp into the burnt hand, and kneeling down
thanked God for having saved myself and all the men lying around me from
horrible destruction. I then got up and, staggering rather than walking
to the place where Captain Dawson was sleeping, and shaking him by the
shoulder till he awoke, I told him of my discovery and the fright I had
got.

At first he either did not believe me, or did not comprehend the danger.
"Bah! Corporal Mitchell," was all his answer, "you have woke up out of
your sleep, and have got frightened at a shadow," for my heart was
still thumping against my ribs worse than it was when I first discovered
my danger, and my voice was trembling. I turned my smarting hand to the
light of the fire and showed the captain how it was scorched; and then,
feeling my pride hurt at being told I had got frightened at a shadow, I
said: "Sir, you're not a Highlander or you would know the Gaelic proverb
'_The heart of one who can look death in the face will not start at a
shadow_,' and you, sir, can yourself bear witness that I have not
shirked to look death in the face more