Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses overagainst the prison, parched and crackled up, and swelling intoboils, as it were from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away;although the glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead andiron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand that touched them,and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and rendered giddy by thesmoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile; still the firewas tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it, men were goingalways. They never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, butpressed upon the flames so hard, that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in; if one man swooned ordropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that although theyknew the pain, and thirst, and pressure to be unendurable. Thosewho fell down in fainting-fits, and were not crushed or burnt,were carried to an inn-yard close at hand, and dashed with waterfrom a pump; of which buckets full were passed from man to manamong the crowd; but such was the strong desire of all to drink,and such the fighting to be first, that, for the most part, thewhole contents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips ofone man being moistened.
Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those whowere nearest to the pile, heaped up again the burning fragmentsthat came toppling down, and raked the fire about the door, which,although a sheet of flame, was still a door fast locked and barred,and kept them out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed,besides, above the people"s heads to such as stood about theladders, and some of these, climbing up to the topmost stave, andholding on with one hand by the prison wall, exerted all theirskill and force to cast these fire-brands on the roof, or down intothe yards within. In many instances their efforts were successful;which occasioned a new and appalling addition to the horrors of thescene: for the prisoners within, seeing from between their bars that the fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, and beingall locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know thatthey were in danger of being burnt alive. This terrible fear,spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself insuch dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks forhelp, that the whole jail resounded with the noise; which wasloudly heard even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of theflames, and was so full of agony and despair, that it made theboldest tremble.
It was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of thejail which fronted Newgate Street, where, it was well known, themen who were to suffer death on Thursday were confined. And notonly were these four who had so short a time to live, the first towhom the dread of being burnt occurred, but they were, throughout,the most importunate of all: for they could be plainly heard,notwithstanding the great thickness of the walls, crying that thewind set that way, and that the flames would shortly reach them;and calling to the officers of the jail to come and quench thefire from a cistern which was in their yard, and full of water.
Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear from timeto time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help;and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happylife before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserableimprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death.
But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men,when they heard, or fancied that they heard, their father"s voice,is past description. After wringing their hands and rushing to andfro as if they were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of hisbrother, and tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guardedat the top with spikes and points of iron. And when he fell amongthe crowd, he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted upagain, and fell again, and, when he found the feat impossible,began to beat the stones and tear them with his hands, as if hecould that way make a breach in the strong building, and force apassage in. At last, they cleft their way among the mob about thedoor, though many men, a dozen times their match, had tried in vainto do so, and were seen, in--yes, in--the fire, striving to prizeit down, with crowbars.
Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison.
The women who were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their handstogether, stopped their ears; and many fainted: the men who werenot near the walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of the street, and did so with a haste andfury they could not have surpassed if that had been the jail, andthey were near their object. Not one living creature in the throngwas for an instant still. The whole great mass were mad.
A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what itmeant. But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, anddrop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, butit was upright still, because of the bar, and its having sunk, ofits own weight, into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was nowa gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried agloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire!
It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. Theyvainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standingas if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures,some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms ofothers, were seen to pass along the roof. It was plain the jailcould hold out no longer. The keeper, and his officers, and theirwives and children, were escaping. Pile up the fire!
The door sank down again: it settled deeper in the cinders-tottered--yielded--was down!
As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left aclear space about the fire that lay between them and the jailentry. Hugh leapt upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train ofsparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with thosethat hung upon his dress, dashed into the jail.
The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track,that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street;but there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prisonwas in flames.