houts, and
clamor, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed
the fire and keep it at its height.

Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over
against the prison parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils as
it were, from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although the
glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs
blistered the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparrows in the
eaves took wing, and rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down
upon the blazing pile;--still the fire was tended unceasingly by busy
hands, and round it men were going always. They never slackened in
their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard that
those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in; if
one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that,
although they knew the pain and thirst and pressure to be unendurable.
Those who fell down in fainting fits, and were not crushed or burned,
were carried to an inn-yard close at hand, and dashed with water from a
pump; of which buckets full were passed from man to man among the crowd;
but such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting to
be first, that for the most part the whole contents were spilled upon
the ground, without the lips of one man being moistened.

Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who were
nearest to the pile heaped up again the burning fragments that 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 the ladders, and some of these,
climbing up to the topmost stave, and holding on with one hand by the
prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast these fire-brands
on the roof, or down into the yards within. In many instances their
efforts were successful, which occasioned a new and appalling addition
to the horrors of the scene; for the prisoners within, seeing from
between their bars that the fire caught in many places and thrived
fiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, began
to know that they were in danger of being burned alive. This terrible
fear, spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself
in such dismal cries and wailings, and in su