Jack found a great earthenware jug in a cellar and set Eliza to work dropping pebbles into its open neck until it was so weighed down as to sink. Meanwhile he was working with the contents of his powder-horn, which had been useless weight to him since the destruction of Brown Bess. He tore a long thin strip of linen from a shirt and rolled it in powder until it was nearly black, then sparked one end of it with flint and steel and observed a steady and satisfactory progress of sputtering and smoky flame. The Frenchman's children had come over to watch. They were so infested with fleas that they rustled. Jack made them stay well back. The fuse demonstration was the most wondrous event of their lives.