e flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they
smeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and
sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison-doors
they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal
christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with
blazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result.

The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax
and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames
roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison-wall, and twining up
its loftly front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the
blaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks: but when it grew
hotter and fiercer--when it crackled, leaped, and roared, like a great
furnace--when it shone upon the opposite houses, and lighted up not only
the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of
each habitation--when through the deep red heat and glow, the fire was
seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate
surface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into
the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to
its ruin--when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of
St Sepulchre's so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in
broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted
light like something richly jewelled--when blackened stone and sombre
brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like
burnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery vista
with their specks of brightness--when wall and tower, and roof and
chimney-stack, seemed drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to
reel and stagger--when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out
upon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect--then
the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, and
clamour, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed
the fire, and keep it at its height.

Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over
against the prison, parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils,
as it were from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although the
glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs
blistered the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparr