“You must build me another city at the same time, Doctor Wren,” sighed the king.  “Ah!” he added, “is not that Mr. Lilly, the almanac-maker, whom I see among the crowd?”

“It is,” replied Rochester.

“Bid him come to me,” replied the king.  And the order being obeyed, he said to the astrologer, “Well, Mr. Lilly, your second prediction has come to pass.  We have had the Plague, and now we have the Fire.  You may thank my clemency that I do not order you to be cast into the flames, like the poor wretch who has just perished before our eyes, as a wizard and professor of the black art.  How did you obtain information of these fatal events?”

“By a careful study of the heavenly bodies, sire,” replied Lilly, “and by long and patient calculations, which, if your majesty or any of your attendants had had leisure or inclination to make, would have afforded you the same information. I make no pretence to the gift of prophecy, but this calamity was predicted in the last century.”

“Indeed! by whom?” asked the king.

“By Michael Nostradamus,” replied Lilly; “his prediction runs thus:—­

  ’La sang du juste a Londres fera faute,
     Bruslez par feu, le vingt et trois, les Six;
   La Dame antique cherra de place haute,
     De meme secte plusieurs seront occis.’[1]

And thus I venture to explain it.  The ‘blood of the just’ refers to the impious and execrable murder of your majesty’s royal father of blessed memory.  ‘Three-and-twenty and six’ gives the exact year of the calamity; and it may likewise give us, as will be seen by computation hereafter, the amount of habitations to be destroyed.  The ‘Ancient Dame’ undoubtedly refers to the venerable pile now burning before us, which, as it stands in the most eminent spot in the city, clearly ’falls from its high place.’  The expression ‘of the same sect’ refers not to men, but churches, of which a large number, I grieve to say it, are already destroyed.”

[Footnote 1: 

  ’The blood of the just shall be wanting in London,
     Burnt by fire of three-and-twenty, the Six;
   The ancient Dame shall fall from her high place,
     Of the same sect many shall be killed.’]

“The prophecy is a singular one,” remarked Charles, musingly “and you have given it a plausible interpretation.”  And for some moments he appeared lost in reflection.  Suddenly rousing himself, he took forth his tablets, and hastily tracing a few lines upon a leaf, tore it out, and delivered it with his signet-ring to Lord Argentine.  “Take this, my lord,” he said, “to Lord Craven.  You will find him at his post in Tower-street.  A band of my attendants shall go with you.  Embark at the nearest stairs you can—­those at Blackfriars I should conceive the most accessible.  Bid the men row for their lives.  As soon as you join Lord Craven, commence operations.  The Tower must be preserved at all hazards.  Mark me!—­at all hazards.”