"One stick is enough to
blow the Fortuna to pieces. Here are one, two, three, four, five,
six--six sticks of high powered explosive lying right next to our
engines. Where would the good ship have been if that stuff had let go? I
tell you, fellows, this looks serious."
"Serious is no name for it," declared Tom. "I'm scared."
"Wonder where he got it?" mused Frank. "It's dangerous stuff for common
folks to have. They don't sell it at the stores."
"No doubt he stole it from someone who is using it for stumping, or some
such work as that. He couldn't buy it," said Tom.
"But look at this fuse," Jack cried. "It looks as if it had been
lighted. Sure as you're a foot high it has been lighted."
"Why didn't the stuff go off then?" queried Tom.
"I don't know," Jack admitted. "I'm going to pull the end of the burned
fuse out of this stick and see what's the matter."
Suiting the action to the word, Jack slowly extracted the end of the
fuse from the stick of gelatine in which it had been thrust.
"Ha, Ha," he laughed with a motion as if to slap his thigh. Startled, he
caught himself in time. The laughter died away.
"What's the matter, Jack?" inquired Frank.
"I almost dropped one of the sticks," replied Jack.
"Well, what of it?" innocently Tom suggested.
"Nothing of it," Jack gruffly responded. "At least, I might say nothing
of the Fortuna and her crew if I had dropped one of the sticks. They're
only about an inch in diameter and seven or eight inches long, but one
of them is enough to blow this vessel into chunks and the six would have
blown her to little pieces.
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