I was not
so much surprised with the lightning as I was with the thought
which darted into my mind as swift as the lightning itself - Oh, my
powder! My very heart sank within me when I thought that, at one
blast, all my powder might be destroyed; on which, not my defence
only, but the providing my food, as I thought, entirely depended.
I was nothing near so anxious about my own danger, though, had the
powder took fire, I should never have known who had hurt me.
Such impression did this make upon me, that after the storm was
over I laid aside all my works, my building and fortifying, and
applied myself to make bags and boxes, to separate the powder, and
to keep it a little and a little in a parcel, in the hope that,
whatever might come, it might not all take fire at once; and to
keep it so apart that it should not be possible to make one part
fire another. I finished this work in about a fortnight; and I
think my powder, which in all was about two hundred and forty
pounds weight, was divided in not less than a hundred parcels. As
to the barrel that had been wet, I did not apprehend any danger
from that; so I placed it in my new cave, which, in my fancy, I
called my kitchen; and the rest I hid up and down in holes among
the rocks, so that no wet might come to it, marking very carefully
where I laid it.
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