Stan Lynn Part 60

"Of course; I do understand that. Sends an electric spark through the powder and blows it up."

"That's right, uncle; only, instead of sending a spark along the wire, it sends a current to the end of the wire, and that end begins to glow till it turns white-hot. But long before that it has set the powder off, and if all goes right we should have a great junk blown all to pieces."

"Bravo!" cried Uncle Jeff. "Three cheers for our inventor, Blunt!"

"Nonsense, uncle! I didn't invent that. It's only what one has read in books on electricity. Now you can see, of course, that there is no danger at the battery end of the wire."

"If you tell me there is no danger, Stan, of course I am bound to believe it; but I don't quite see why the wire should not carry us the message of the blow-up, and blow us up into the bargain."

"Ah! but that would be outside the bargain, uncle," said Stan, laughing.

"It would be a good bargain for us."

"And a horribly bad one for the Chinamen," said Uncle Jeff.--"Look here, Blunt, this seems to be quite feasible."

"Quite," was the reply. "There is only one risk in it that I see."

"And that is--"

"Making a mistake: some one connecting the wire at the wrong time for the friendly junk instead of an enemy. It wouldn't do to blow up Mao or old Wing."

"No, uncle," said Stan quietly; "and it wouldn't do to take down rifles and shoot either of them. There would be no danger so long as we took care of the electric battery; nothing else would fire the canister."

"All right," cried Uncle Jeff in his cheeriest way. "Then the next thing to be done is to get so many tins."

"They ought to be copper," said Stan.

"Very well, then, coppers--ready to 'sky,' Stan--eh? You remember skying the copper--the old charwoman putting the gunpowder in the copper flue, as she said, to 'burn up by degrees'?"

"Yes, I remember," said Stan, laughing; "and when it had exploded she said, 'Where is the powder blue?'"

"Exactly. The result of meddling with explosives which she did not understand. I don't understand these things, so I feel nervous about handling them; but with the proviso that you two are careful, I shall send an order for all the materials you want, so that we shall have so many mines ready for war-junks which come to meddle with us. But it must take time."

"Yes," said Blunt, "it will take some months, for everything will have to come from England, I expect. But I honestly believe that it will be long before the enemy get over the defeat they have had, and meanwhile I feel quite happy, for you have brought me four times as large a supply of cartridges as we had before, and yourself as reinforcement. Besides, our men are all veterans now, ready for the savage brutes if they do venture to come."

"Well, the longer they keep off the better," said Uncle Jeff, "for you will not be out of hospital for a month, Blunt."

"What!" cried the manager fiercely. "Let them come, and they'd find me ready for action now."

Uncle Jeff glanced at him and shook his head.

"But I am, I tell you," cried Blunt excitedly. "My eyes are clear, and my hand is pretty steady. I could manage a rifle now as well as when I practised at a mark.--What do you say, Stan? Don't you think I could fight?"

"I believe you'd try."

"Try: yes. I want to pay off old scores."

"Ah, well!" said Uncle Jeff, "we have no need to fidget about that.

Wait till the wretches come and then we'll see."

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

"QUITE SAFE TILL DAWN."

"It seems rather absurd for us to settle down to talk about making what people call infernal machines, Stan," said Uncle Jeff, and he pointed through the open window of the office to the scene being enacted on the wharf, with a lovely background of river, cultivated ground covered with corn, rice, and fruit-trees, and beyond these hill and mountain of every shade of delicious blue. "Why, everything looks as peaceful as can be.

Look at those trading-craft with the stores they are bringing in, and the village boats piled up with fruit, vegetables, and grain. Hullo!

What's that next one?"

"Oh, that's the one that brings milk and eggs, poultry and little pigs,"

said Stan, smiling. "We call it the _Dairy_."

"I really cannot realise the horrors you talked about, Stan, and in the midst of such a beautiful scene of peace and content I can't talk about torpedoes. Here, I want some of those bright golden bananas from that boat."

Stan's forehead puckered up again, and he did not even glance at the boat with golden bananas, oranges, and scarlet tomatoes.

"But you wouldn't say it was absurd to talk about umbrellas because we'd had three or four lovely days, uncle. Storms are sure to come."

"Snubbed!" exclaimed Uncle Jeff.

"Uncle!"

"Well, I am, Stan--regularly snubbed; and I deserve it, boy. Never mind your umbrella simile; let's have a better one. Suppose we say it's foolish to build a house on the slope of a volcano because the mountain has been quiet for a few years. That's better. Yes, it would be foolish to settle down in the belief of there being peace when that lady of the doves doesn't seem to be indigenous to Chinese soil. We'll see about the torpedoes at once, Stan; but let us moderate our transports, and begin with a couple. They'll be easier to manage, and we might find that we could improve upon them."

"Yes, that is most likely, uncle," said Stan. "Let it be two, then."

"Take a sheet of paper, and we'll make out a list of the things we want sent out."

"Yes, uncle," said the lad eagerly; and he took a big sheet of ruled foolscap, dipped a pen, and sat ready to take down his uncle's words.

But none came, for Uncle Jeff was filling a pipe now and looking thoughtfully before him in silence.

"It seems to me," he said at last, "that--Hullo, Blunt! We're jotting down some notions for our torpedoes."

"You haven't any ready, I suppose?"

"Ready?" said Uncle Jeff, staring. "Of course not."

"Then they'll be of no use to us this time."

"Is anything the matter, Mr Blunt?" said Stan, whose late experiences had made him ready to take alarm.

"Yes, Lynn; a tea-grower from up-country has come down to warn me that some junks have been prepared, filled with men, and are coming down the river again."

"A false alarm, perhaps."

"No; I have too much faith in my informant, one of those with whom I have done most business since I have been here. He tells me that he had a hint that the pirates were on the way again so as to have revenge for their late defeat, and he came across country to warn me."