der may remember, that when I signed those articles upon which I
recovered my liberty, there were some which I disliked, upon account of
their being too servile; neither could anything but an extreme necessity
have forced me to submit. But being now a _nardac_ of the highest rank
in that empire, such offices were looked upon as below my dignity, and
the emperor (to do him justice), never once mentioned them to me.
However, it was not long before I had an opportunity of doing his
majesty, at least as I then thought, a most signal service. I was
alarmed at midnight with the cries of many hundred people at my door; by
which, being suddenly awaked, I was in some kind of terror. I heard the
word _Burglum_ repeated incessantly: several of the emperor's court,
making their way through the crowd, entreated me to come immediately to
the palace, where her imperial majesty's apartment was on fire, by the
carelessness of a maid of honour, who fell asleep while she was reading a
romance. I got up in an instant; and orders being given to clear the way
before me, and it being likewise a moonshine night, I made a shift to get
to the palace without trampling on any of the people. I found they had
already applied ladders to the walls of the apartment, and were well
provided with buckets, but the water was at some distance. These buckets
were about the size of large thimbles, and the poor people supplied me
with them as fast as they could: but the flame was so violent that they
did little good. I might easily have stifled it with my coat, which I
unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came away only in my leathern
jerkin. The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable; and this
magnificent palace would have infallibly been burnt down to the ground,
if, by a presence of mind unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an
expedient. I had, the evening before, drunk plentifully of a most
delicious wine called _glimigrim_, (the Blefuscudians call it _flunec_,
but ours is esteemed the better sort,) which is very diuretic. By the
luckiest chance in the world, I had not discharged myself of any part of
it. The heat I had contracted by coming very near the flames, and by
labouring to quench them, made the wine begin to operate by urine; which
I voided in such a quantity, and applied so well to the proper places,
that in three minutes the fire was wholly extinguished, and the rest of
that noble pile, which had cost so many ages in e