What had occurred was not an explosion – for the gunpowder, fortunately, had not been confined – but a very rapid burning. The screen was wrecked. The cabinetry in the alcove was blackened. A scale had been blown off the counter and was probably ruined. The mortar that Roger had dropped lay in fat shards at the epicenter of the black burst, making Daniel think of the cannon that had exploded at the 'Siege of Maestricht,' and other such disasters he had heard about lately aboard ships of the Royal Navy. Surrounding it were burnt scraps of linen – the bag into which Roger had been decocting the gunpowder when Daniel had set fire to it. It was, in other words, the least possible amount of devastation that could possibly result from deflagration of a sack of gunpowder inside the house. That said, this corner of the laboratory was a shambles, and would have to be cleaned up – a task that would fall to Roger anyway. Unless, as seemed likely, Isaac fired him.