This, it seems, was necessary, or so I understood, lest the expanding gases, following the line of least resistance, should blow back, as it were, through the vent-hole.

What made that task the more difficult was the need of cutting a little channel in the rock to contain the wires, and thereby lessen the risk of the fracture of these wires in the course of the building-up process.

Of course, if by any accident this should happen, the circuit would be severed, and no explosion would follow when the electric battery was set to work.
The arrangement was that the mine should be fired on the night of that full moon on which we had been told, and spies confirmed the information, the feast of the marriage of Barung's daughter to my son would be celebrated in the city of Harmac.

This date was fixed because the Sultan had announced that so soon as that festivity, which coincided with the conclusion of the harvest, was ended, he meant to deliver his attack on Mur.
Also, we were anxious that it should be adhered to for another reason, since we knew that on this day but a small number of priests and guards would be left in charge of the idol, and my son could not be among them.
Now, whatever may have been the views of the Abati, we as Christians who bore them no malice did not at all desire to destroy an enormous number of innocent Fung, as might have happened if we had fired our mine when the people were gathered to sacrifice to their god.
The fatal day arrived at last.

All was completed, save for the blocking of the passage, which still went on, or, rather, was being reinforced by the piling up of loose rocks against its mouth, at which a hundred or so men laboured incessantly.