Dancing' Over a Volcano.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 44, 14 September 1870, Page 7

Dancing' Over a Volcano.

One of the richest gunmakers of New York recently gave a ball on the occasion of liia daughter's marriage. The company wer,e at the height of gaiety, dancing and .singing, and the host slipped away to the j lower regions to see that all was in right ; order for the supper, which was to wind \ up the evening's amusement. In the passage leading to the kitchen he met one of the maidservants, a country girl recently hired, with a candle in her. hand, which she was holding, country fashion, without the aid of a candlestick. Without troubling himself to inquire her errand, the; host passed on to the kitchen, where he! found his wife in anxious consultation with! the cook, and in a few minutes afterwards the new maid appeared, carrying a number of bottles she had been sent to fetch from the cellar. At this moment it flashed across the host's memory that lie had deposited three barrels of gunpowder in -the' cellar, and that the lid of one had been taken off to show a customer the quality of the contents. He asked the servant in a trembling voice what she had done with her candle. " It's in the cellar, sir : sure 1 stuck it in the cask of black sand foment the door while I'd be taking out the wine." For a moment the wretched man felt paralysed, then he rushed to the cellar, and was horror-struck to see the naked candle stuck upright in the cask of powder, exactly under the room where all the young people were dancing. The wick wanted snuffing, and threatened every moment to fall. Half petrified with fear, lie gazed at the dreadful sight for a moment without having the power to move ; then, recoveri iug his presence of mind, (for the candle, ! shaken by the vibrations of the floor over- ; head, seemed inclined to topple over), lie | cautiously but swiftly advanced, stretched i out his hand, and extricated the dreadful i fuse from the shell, which in another ' minute might have blown him and his i guests to atoms. Returning to the kitchen, | he relieved his over-wrought feelings by I flinging the candle in the face of the care- ■ less %W& ,J iW*fc tllori nu,rtt ungallantly ' the street, till his wife ' thought he was fairly mad or drunk.