ank down on a bench from exhaustion.

"So, my masters," observed the turnkey, with a grim smile, "you were not
able to rescue them, I perceive?" But receiving no answer, he added,
"Well, and what did you see?"

"A sight that would have moved even your stony heart to compassion,"
returned Leonard, getting up and quitting the lodge. Followed by
Wingfield, and scarcely knowing where he was going, he forced his way
through the crowd, and dashing down Snow-hill, did not stop till he
reached Holborn Conduit, where, seizing a leathern bucket, he filled it
with water, and plunged his head into it. Refreshed by the immersion, he
now glanced at the document committed to him by Grant. It was a piece of
parchment, and showed by its shrivelled and scorched appearance the
agony which its late possessor must have endured, Leonard did not open
it, but thrust it with a shudder into his doublet.

Meditating on the strange and terrible events that had just occurred,
Leonard's thoughts involuntarily wandered to the Lady Isabella, whose
image appeared to him like a bright star shining on troubled waters, and
for the first time venturing to indulge in a hope that she might indeed
be his, he determined immediately to proceed in search of her.

It was now high noon, but the mid-day sun was scarcely visible, or not
visible at all; as it struggled through the masses of yellow vapour it
looked red as blood. Bands of workmen were demolishing houses on the
western side of Fleet Ditch, and casting the rubbish into the muddy
sluice before them, by which means it was confidently but vainly hoped
that the progress of the fire would be checked. Shaping their course
along the opposite side of the ditch, and crossing to Fleet Bridge,
Leonard and his companion passed through Salisbury-court to Whitefriars,
and taking a boat, directed the waterman to land them at Puddle Dock.
The river was still covered with craft of every description laden with
goods, and Baynard's Castle, an embattled stone structure of great
strength and solidity, built at the beginning of the fifteenth century
on the site of another castle as old as the Conquest, being now wrapped
in flames from foundation to turret, offered a magnificent spectacle.
From this point the four ascents leading to the cathedral, namely,
Addle-hill, Saint Bennet's-hill, Saint Peter's-hill, and Lambert-hill,
with all their throng of habitations, were burning--the black lines of
ruined walls standing in bold