at may come next. I must not stay; but,
Mrs. Arundel, you may be thankful for the blow on your husband's head,
yesterday, which has, perhaps, saved his life. Upon my honour, I don't
believe any man outside his own doors to-night can depend upon living to
see the morning break."

When Mr. Bengough was gone, Joyce heard the frightened servants crying
out, that the fire was bigger than ever, and that they were sure the
house would catch fire, and they would all be burned alive.

Mrs. Arundel could not calm their fears, and scarcely control her own,
and Joyce alone preserved any self-possession.

"The panes of glass are hot in the nursery!" they said; "come up there,
ma'am, and see if it is not true."

"Do not wake Master Falcon or disturb your master. Remember you are--we
all are--in God's hands."

But, as Joyce looked out from the vantage ground of the nursery windows,
the terrified servants clinging to her, with cries and exclamations, the
sight was one too awful for any words to paint. The panes of glass were
actually heated, and the lurid, fierce glare seemed to be ever
increasing.

The scene upon which Joyce gazed, with that strange fascination, which,
acting like a spell, seemed to compel her to look at what yet she shrank
from as too awful, has been left on record by one who, then a boy at
school, has described it in a vivid word picture, which was the outcome
of the actual experience of an eye-witness. This boy, who was one day,
to be foremost in the ranks of those who carried the standard of truth,
and justice, and charity into the very thick of the conflict with the
powers of darkness, thus spoke--long, long after most of those who had
taken any part in those three awful days were dead--to an audience who
were inhabitants of the city of Bristol, and to whom, therefore, the
subject was of especial interest. He said:

"I was a schoolboy in Clifton, up above Bristol. I had been hearing of
political disturbances, even of riots, of which I understood nothing,
and for which I cared nothing.

"But on one memorable Sunday afternoon I saw an object which was
distinctly not political. It was an afternoon of sullen, autumn rain.
The fog hung thick over the docks and lowlands. Glaring through the fog
I saw a bright mass of flame, almost like a half-risen sun. That, I was
told, was the gate of the new gaol on fire; that the prisoners had been
set free. The fog rolled slowly upwards. Dark figures, even at that
great