But, whatever the circumstances and manner of the transaction, it appears that at Lady-day, 1605, this chamber came into the hands of those who were to make it so famous; whereupon, we are told, they resolved to abandon the mine, and use this ready-made cavity for their purposes. To it, accordingly, they transferred their powder, the barrels, by subsequent additions, being increased to thirty-six, and the amount to nine or ten thousand pounds.[162] The casks were covered with firewood, 500 faggots and 3,000 billets being brought in by hired porters and piled up by Faukes, to whose charge, in his assumed character of Percy's servant, the cellar was committed. It is stated in Winter's long declaration on this subject,[163] that the barrels were thus completely hidden, "because we might have the house free, to suffer anyone to enter that would," and we find it mentioned by various writers subsequently, that free ingress was actually allowed to the public. Thus we read[164] of "the deep cunning [of the conspirators] in throwing open the vault, as if there had been nothing to conceal;" while another writer[165] tells us, "The place was hired by Percy; 36 barrels of gunpowder were lodged in it; the whole covered up with billets and faggots; the doors of the cellar boldly flung open, and everybody admitted, as though it contained nothing dangerous." On the top of the barrels were likewise placed "great bars of iron and massy stones," in order "to make the breach the greater." [Illustration: ARCHES FROM THE "CELLAR" UNDER THE HOUSE OF LORDS.] We may here pause to review the extraordinary story to which we have been listening. A group of men, known for as dangerous characters as any in England, men, in Cecil's own words,[166] "spent in their fortunes," "hunger-starved for innovations," "turbulent spirits," and "fit for all alterations," take a house within the precincts of a royal palace, and close to the Upper House of Parliament, dig a mine, hammer away for over two months at the wall, acquire and bring in four tons of gunpowder, storing it in a large and conspicuous chamber immediately beneath that of the Peers, and covering it with an amount of fuel sufficient for a royal establishment--and meanwhile those responsible for the government of the country have not even the faintest suspicion of any possible danger. "Never," it is said,[167] "was treason more secret, or ruin more apparently inevitable," while the Secretary of State himself declared[168] that such ruin was averted only by the direct interposition of Heaven, in a manner nothing short of miraculous.