The String of Pearls (1850), p. 640

"I shal do it!—I shall do it!" muttered Todd, "I shall easily do it. There is no one to prevent me. Ha!—ha! I do believe that I shall smother some of them, before they can possibly find the means of getting down stairs, that would be quite a mercy of providence—oh, quite!"

CHAPTER CL.
TODD SETS THE TO HIS HOUSE, AND THEN HIDES IN THE CHURCH.

Immediately beneath the parlour, where a portion of the cellar vent, there was a quantity of old lumber. Perhaps if that lumber had been looked very carefully over, among it there might have been found some fragments of old, and some of new coffins from Sr. Dunstan's; for with the rich, who had vaults of their own, it was the arrogant fashion to adorn the last sad and narrow home of humanity with silver plates and nails; and Todd had despoiled the grave of some of those costly trappings.
Upon the heap of rubbish he scrambled, and that just enabled him comfortably to reach the floor of that parlour. That portion of the floor went under a cupboard in one corner, and in the floor of it three or four course round holes had been drilled with a centre-bit. Todd had had his own motives for drilling those holes in the cupboard floor.
He now put his finger through one of the holes, and when he did so, he gave a chuckle of delight, for he was convinced that the contents of that cupboard had not been in any way interfered with; and that, as a consequence, he should find no difficulty in firing the house completely.
"So," he said, " this is the cleverness of your much-vaunted Sir Richard Blunt. He has left a cupboard as crammed with combustible materials as it well can be, to the mercy of the first accident that may set fire to them; and now the accident has come."
Again Todd listened attentively, and was still further satisfied that all was profoundly still in the parlour, although he heard the racket and the banging of doors in the upper part of the house.
"This is good," said Todd. "This is capital. All is well now. The fire will have made most excellent progress before they will discover it, and I will warrant that if once it takes a firm hold of the wood work of this old house, it is not a trifle that will stop its roaring progress.
With this, Todd ignited one of his matches and thrust it alight through one of the holes in the floor of the cupboard.
A slight cracking noise ensued immediately.
"That will do," said Todd, and he withdrew the match and cast it upon the ground. The crackling noise continued. He turned and fled from the place with precipitation.
In the lower portion of that cupboard there was a quantity of hay, upon which oil and turpentine had been poured liberally. High up upon a shelf was a wooden bowl, with eight pounds of gunpowder in it, and Todd did not know a moment when the flames might reach it, when a terrific explosion would be sure to ensue.
"It is done now," he said. "It is done, and they do not know it. More revenge—more revenge! I shall have mare revenge now, and there will be more death."
He knew that there was only one thing that could by any possibility prevent the gunpowder in the wooden bowl from becoming speedily ignited, and that that would be in consequence of the hay being packed too close to do more than smoulder for a little time before bursting into a flame; but that it must and would do so eventually, there could be no possible doubt, and it was in that hearty conviction that Sweeney Todd now most fully gloried.