midnight
Thirty men , equally divided between Irish and negroes , fell off the flat cars before the wheels had ceased to revolve , and , without a word of direction , began loading the heavy boxes on the train and passing the kegs of cartridges from hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder . The sailors spread out up the road that led to the Capital to give warning in case the enemy approached , but they were recalled before they had reason to give an alarm , and in a half hour Burke 's entire shipment of arms was on the ore-cars , the men who were to have guarded them were prisoners in the cab of the engine , and both trains were rushing at full speed toward the mines . On arriving there Kirkland 's train was switched to the siding that led to the magazine in which was stored the rack-arock and dynamite used in the blasting . By midnight all of the boxes were safely under lock in the zinc building , and the number of the men who always guarded the place for fear of fire or accident was doubled , while a reserve , composed of Kirkland 's thirty picked men , were hidden in the surrounding houses and engine-sheds . Before Clay left he had one of the boxes broken open , and found that it held a hundred Mannlicher rifles . `` Good ! '' he said .