gh some officers with torches were passing to and fro upon the roof
of the prison. Soon it reddened, and lighted brands came whirling down,
spattering the ground with fire, and burning sullenly in corners. One
rolled beneath a wooden bench and set it in a blaze; another caught a
water-spout, and so went climbing up the wall, leaving a long straight
track of fire behind it. After a time, a slow thick shower of burning
fragments, from some upper portion of the prison which was blazing nigh,
began to fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards, he
knew that every spark which fell upon the heap, and in the act lost its
bright life and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish, helped to entomb
him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded with shrieks and
cries for help,--though the fire bounded up as if each separate name had
had a tiger's life, and roared as though in every one there were a
hungry voice--though the heat began to grow intense, and the air
suffocating, and the clamor without increased, and the danger of his
situation even from one merciless element was every moment more
extreme,--still he was afraid to raise his voice again, lest the crowd
should break in, and should, of their own ears or from the information
given them by the other prisoners, get the clew to his place of
confinement. Thus fearful alike of those within the prison and of those
without; of noise and silence; light and darkness; of being released,
and being left there to die: he was so tortured and tormented, that
nothing man has ever done to man in the horrible caprice of power and
cruelty, exceeds his self-inflicted punishment.

Now, now, the door was down. Now they came rushing through the jail,
calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates
dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells and wards;
wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the doorposts to
get men out; endeavoring to drag them by main force through gaps and
windows where a child could scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without
a moment's rest; and running through the heat and flames as if they were
cased in metal. By their legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads,
they dragged the prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon the captives
as they got towards the door, and tried to file away their irons; some
danced about them with a frenzied joy, and rent their clothes, and were
ready, as it seemed, to tear them