One hopes he was going to try to put the wick into the flash pan and somehow light it that way rather than discharging the unloaded pistol in the direction of the candle, but who knows? And perhaps he was drunk? I suspect he just got the the point of bloody-minded insistence that he was, by gum, going to light that candle! and then once it was lit the whole episode was preposterous enough to write down. :)