have
cleft his skull in twain.

'Barnaby--you! Whose hand was that, that struck me down?'

'Not mine.'

'Whose!--I say, whose!' he cried, reeling back, and looking wildly
round. 'What are you doing? Where is he? Show me!'

'You are hurt,' said Barnaby--as indeed he was, in the head, both by the
blow he had received, and by his horse's hoof. 'Come away with me.'

As he spoke, he took the horse's bridle in his hand, turned him, and
dragged Hugh several paces. This brought them out of the crowd, which
was pouring from the street into the vintner's cellars.

'Where's--where's Dennis?' said Hugh, coming to a stop, and checking
Barnaby with his strong arm. 'Where has he been all day? What did
he mean by leaving me as he did, in the jail, last night? Tell me,
you--d'ye hear!'

With a flourish of his dangerous weapon, he fell down upon the ground
like a log. After a minute, though already frantic with drinking and
with the wound in his head, he crawled to a stream of burning spirit
which was pouring down the kennel, and began to drink at it as if it
were a brook of water.

Barnaby drew him away, and forced him to rise. Though he could neither
stand nor walk, he involuntarily staggered to his horse, climbed upon
his back, and clung there. After vainly attempting to divest the animal
of his clanking trappings, Barnaby sprung up behind him, snatched the
bridle, turned into Leather Lane, which was close at hand, and urged the
frightened horse into a heavy trot.

He looked back, once, before he left the street; and looked upon a sight
not easily to be erased, even from his remembrance, so long as he had
life.

The vintner's house with a half-a-dozen others near at hand, was one
great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench the
flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers were actively
engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which were every moment
in danger of taking fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were
left to burn, to extend the conflagration immensely. The tumbling
down of nodding walls and heavy blocks of wood, the hooting and
the execrations of the crowd, the distant firing of other military
detachments, the distracted looks and cries of those whose habitations
were in danger, the hurrying to and fro of frightened people with
their goods; the reflections in every quarter of the sky, of deep, red,
soaring flames, as though the last day had come and the whole univers