He staggered up to him and gasped out, "I've done the trick, give me the brass, and let me go. I see a halter in the air." His teeth chattered.
But Coventry, after hoping and fearing for two hours and a half, had lost all confidence in his associate, and he said, "How am I to know you've done anything?"
"You'll see and you'll hear," said Cole. "Give me the brass."
"Wait till I see and hear," was the reply.
"What, wait to be nabbed? Another minute, and all the town will be out after me. Give it me, or I'll take it."
"Will you?" And Coventry took out a pistol and cocked it. Cole recoiled.
"Look here," said Coventry; "there are one hundred and fifty sovereigns in this bag. The moment I receive proof you have not deceived me, I give you the bag."
"Here, where we stand?"
"Here, on this spot."
"Hush! not so loud. Didn't I hear a step?"
They both listened keenly. The fog was thick by this time.
Cole whispered, "Look down the river. I wonder which will go off first? It is very cold; very." And he shook like a man in an ague.
Both men listened, numbed with cold, and quivering with the expectation of crime.
A clock struck twelve.
At the first stroke the confederates started and uttered a cry.
They were in that state when everything sudden shakes men like thunder.
All still again, and they listened and shook again with fog and grime.
Sudden a lurid flash, and a report, dull and heavy, and something tall seemed to lean toward them from the sky, and there was a mighty rushing sound, and a cold wind in their faces, and an awful fall of masonry on the water, and the water spurted under the stroke. The great chimney had fallen in the river. At this very moment came a sharp, tremendous report like a clap of thunder close at hand. It was so awful, that both bag and pistol fell out of Coventry's hand and rung upon the pavement, and he fled, terror-stricken.
Cole, though frightened, went down on his knees, and got the bag, and started to run the other way.
But almost at the first step he ran against a man, who was running toward him.
Both were staggered by the shock, and almost knocked down.
But the man recovered himself first, and seized Cole with a grip of iron.
When Coventry had run a few steps he recovered his judgment so far as to recollect that this would lay him open to suspicion. He left off running, and walked briskly instead.
Presently the great door of the works was opened, and the porter appeared crying wildly for help, and that the place was on fire.
The few people that were about made a rush, and Coventry, driven by an awful curiosity, went in with them; for why should he be suspected any more than they?
He had not gone in half a minute when Mr. Ransome arrived with several policemen, and closed the doors at once against all comers.
Strange to say, the last explosion had rung the bell in the police-office; hence this prompt appearance of the police.
The five or six persons who got in with Coventry knew nothing, and ran hither and thither. Coventry, better informed, darted at once to Little's quarters, and there beheld an awful sight; the roof presented the appearance of a sieve: of the second floor little remained but a few of the joists, and these were most of them broken and stood on and across each other, like a hedgehog's bristles.