up, all
dead, all annihilated so suddenly. They sat talking of it very long
before Ellen said,

"And what must _we_ do now, Paulett?"

"We must go on, Ellen; we must travel further. The rest we hoped for is
destroyed with the city, and we must press forward if we are to save our
lives."

"That seems less and less possible," said Ellen; "and in all this
destruction why should we be preserved?"

"Perhaps because we have as yet avoided the stroke, by using all our
human skill; perhaps because a new race is to spring from us, who shall
reign in another mighty London! Alas, London!--alas, the great city!"

Several times during the night Ellen heard Paulett murmur to himself
words of lament over the fallen city; and when he slept, his rest was
agitated, and his frame seemed trembling under the emotions of the day.

It was resolved that Ellen should rest a little while in their present
habitation, before undertaking the toils of further travel. They
intended to make for the coast, sure of a dry channel to the opposite
shore, and hoping to reach some of the great continental towns before
their store of diamonds should be utterly exhausted. In the meantime,
Paulett was bent upon taking his boy through the ruins of London, and
impressing upon him the memory of the place, and its great events. So
the next day, leaving Ellen and the little Alice together, he and
Charles began their pilgrimage through the mighty ruins. The event must
have occurred very many months ago, for the ruins were perfectly cold,
and the winds had toppled down the walls of all the more fragile
buildings; so that the streets lay in confusion over one another, and it
was impossible, except by other marks, to recognise the localities.
Paulett and Charles clambered over the fallen walls, and would have been
bewildered among heaps of masonry, and houses shaken from their base and
blackened by fire--only that over the desolate prospect they saw, and
Paulett marked the bearings of St Paul's, the chief part of whose dome
rose high in the air, though a huge rent let the daylight through it,
and threatened a speedy fall. There was here and there a spire, rising
perfect over the ruins; there were remains of Whitehall, strong though
blackened, seen over a long view of prostrate streets; and in the
distance beyond, fragments of Westminster Abbey showed themselves in the
sunlight, though defaced and crumbled, as if the frame had been too
ancient to resist the fire.