gan to curl through the streets; the soldiers
were obliged to shake off the glowing and dusty flakes from their
mantles and richly plumed helmets, where they often rested smouldering.
"I trust the enemy in his despair has not set fire to some magazine full
of powder!" exclaimed the thoughtful Heimbert; and Fadrique, allowing
by a sign that he agreed with his surmise, hastened on to the spot from
whence the smoke proceeded, the troops courageously pressing after him.

The sudden turn of a street brought them in view of a magnificent
palace, from the beautifully ornamented windows of which the flames
were emerging, looking like torches of death in their fitful glow,
and lighting up the splendid building in the hour of its ruin in the
grandest manner, now illuminating this and now that part of the gigantic
structure, and then again relapsing into a fearful darkness of smoke and
vapor.

And like some faultless statue, the ornament of the whole edifice, there
stood Zelinda upon a high and giddy projection, while the tongues of
flame wreathed around her from below, calling to her companions in the
faith to help her in saving the wisdom of centuries which was preserved
in this building. The projection on which she stood began to totter from
the fervent heat raging beneath it, and a few stones gave way; Fadrique
called with a voice full of anguish to the endangered lady, and scarcely
had she withdrawn her foot from the spot, when the stone on which she
had been standing broke away and came rattling down on the pavement.
Zelinda disappeared within the burning palace, and Fadrique rushed up
its marble staircase, Heimbert, his faithful companion, following him.

Their hasty steps carried them through lofty resounding halls; the
architecture over their heads was a maze of high arches, and one chamber
led into another almost like a labyrinth. The walls displayed on all
sides magnificent shelves, in which were to be seen stored rolls of
parchment, papyrus, and palm-leaf, partly inscribed with the characters
of long-vanished centuries, and which were now to perish themselves.
For the flames were already crackling among them and stretching their
serpent-like and fiery heads from one case of treasures to another;
while some Spanish soldiers, barbarous in their fury, and hoping for
plunder, and finding nothing but inscribed rolls within the gorgeous
building, passed from disappointment to rage, and aided the flames; the
more so as they