y the
friends they had among the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they went
along, with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats
and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their lips,
because of their handcuffs which there was no time to remove. All this,
and Heaven knows how much more, was done amidst a noise, a hurry, and
distraction, like nothing that we know of, even in our dreams; which
seemed for ever on the rise, and never to decrease for the space of a
single instant.

He was still looking down from his window upon these things, when a band
of men with torches, ladders, axes, and many kinds of weapons, poured
into the yard, and hammering at his door, inquired if there were any
prisoner within. He left the window when he saw them coming, and drew
back into the remotest corner of the cell; but although he returned them
no answer, they had a fancy that some one was inside, for they presently
set ladders against it, and began to tear away the bars at the casement;
not only that, indeed, but with pickaxes to hew down the very stones in
the wall.

As soon as they had made a breach at the window, large enough for the
admission of a man's head, one of them thrust in a torch and looked all
round the room. He followed this man's gaze until it rested on himself,
and heard him demand why he had not answered, but made him no reply.

In the general surprise and wonder, they were used to this; without
saying anything more, they enlarged the breach until it was large enough
to admit the body of a man, and then came dropping down upon the floor,
one after another, until the cell was full. They caught him up among
them, handed him to the window, and those who stood upon the ladders
passed him down upon the pavement of the yard. Then the rest came out,
one after another, and, bidding him fly, and lose no time, or the way
would be choked up, hurried away to rescue others.

It seemed not a minute's work from first to last. He staggered to his
feet, incredulous of what had happened, when the yard was filled
again, and a crowd rushed on, hurrying Barnaby among them. In another
minute--not so much: another minute! the same instant, with no lapse or
interval between!--he and his son were being passed from hand to hand,
through the dense crowd in the street, and were glancing backward at a
burning pile which some one said was Newgate.

From the moment of their first entrance into the prison, the