The fuse was sizzling almost silently near them, and in the noise of the town's nightlife, no one had noticed how they had dragged it along.
Bastian tried to stomp it out, but the cursed thing was burning with a flame that just kept on eating the fuse and there were no buckets of water anywhere nearby.
Interesting, he thought in a flash of poor concentration, there could be such fuses that did not get stomped out when one stomped on them. It had to be magic.
He didn't have enough time to start wondering whether the man had somehow managed to light it up himself or if he had an accomplice. They had to run and take cover.
Bastian directed the women out of the shack. They ran full speed towards the marketplace.
It was too crowded. There were at least a dozen people in immediate danger, too near to the shack.
