“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 relief against the white sheet of flame.  Billows of fire rolled upwards every moment towards Saint Paul’s, and threatened it with destruction.

Landing at the appointed place Leonard and his companion ascended Saint Andrew’s-hill, and, proceeding along Carter-lane, soon gained the precincts of the cathedral.  Here the whole mass of habitations on the summit of Saint Bennet’s-hill extending from the eastern, end of Carter-lane to Distaff-lane, was on fire, and the flames were dashed by the fierce wind against the south-east corner of the cathedral.