He became animated, and spoke with the assurance of a man who knows whereof he is descanting, and an authority that carried conviction with it.

In the heat of his eloquence he would describe the marvellous qualities of his fulgurator and the truly extraordinary effects it caused.

As to the nature of the explosive and of the deflagrator, the elements of which the latter was composed, their manufacture, and the way in which they were employed, he preserved complete silence, and all attempts to worm the secret out of him remained ineffectual.

Once or twice, during the height of the paroxysms to which he was occasionally subject, there had been reason to believe that his secret would escape him, and every precaution had been taken to note his slightest utterance.

But Thomas Roch had each time disappointed his watchers.