Explore "The Green Girl" by Jack Williamson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
At last, in haste and fear and trembling, I began the task of mixing my chemicals, dumping them into vats of water cooled by evaporation, under a rude shed to cut off the fierce heat of the red sky. Even with all my precautions to prevent a premature explosion, the hazard was fearful. I washed the nitroglycerine, and carried it in earthen jars down into the heart of the cliffs. I meant to die in the final explosion, but I was afraid the stuff would go off before it was in place.
But finally I got the last of the rough jars into position. Then I closed the mouth of the chamber with rocks and rubbish, to be sure that the full force of the explosion would be exerted upon the cliff. I lit the fuse I had prepared -- a tall candle of the sloth's fat, which, burning low, would ignite a powder train; and that would set off a charge of gunpowder I had placed by the jars of nitroglycerine.