Why do you waste your whole strength on such as he, when a coupleof men can finish him in as many minutes! You lose time. Rememberthe prisoners! remember Barnaby!"
The cry ran through the mob. Hammers began to rattle on the walls;and every man strove to reach the prison, and be among the foremostrank. Fighting their way through the press and struggle, asdesperately as if they were in the midst of enemies rather thantheir own friends, the two men retreated with the locksmith betweenthem, and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse.
And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and onthe strong building; for those who could not reach the door, spenttheir fierce rage on anything--even on the great blocks of stone,which shivered their weapons into fragments, and made their handsand arms to tingle as if the walls were active in their stoutresistance, and dealt them back their blows. The clash of ironringing upon iron, mingled with the deafening tumult and soundedhigh above it, as the great sledge-hammers rattled on the nailedand plated door: the sparks flew off in showers; men worked ingangs, and at short intervals relieved each other, that all theirstrength might be devoted to the work; but there stood the portalstill, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and, saving for thedints upon its battered surface, quite unchanged.
While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsometask; and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried toclamber to the summit of the walls they were too short to scale;and some again engaged a body of police a hundred strong, and beatthem back and trod them under foot by force of numbers; othersbesieged the house on which the jailer had appeared, and driving inthe door, brought out his furniture, and piled it up against theprison-gate, to make a bonfire which should burn it down. As soonas this device was understood, all those who had laboured hitherto,cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap; which reachedhalf-way across the street, and was so high, that those who threwmore fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper"sgoods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, theysmeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, andsprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round theprison-doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or beamuntouched. This infernal christening performed, they fired thepile with lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood by,awaiting the result.
The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by waxand oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. Theflames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison-wall, andtwining up its loftly front like burning serpents. At first theycrowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in theirlooks: but when it grew hotter and fiercer--when it crackled,leaped, and roared, like a great furnace--when it shone upon theopposite houses, and lighted up not only the pale and wonderingfaces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation-whenthrough the deep red heat and glow, the fire was seen sportingand toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface, nowgliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into the sky,anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to itsruin--when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clockof St Sepulchre"s so often pointing to the hour of death, waslegible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-topglittered in the unwonted light like something richly jewelled-whenblackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deepreflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting thelongest distance in the fiery vista with their specks ofbrightness--when wall and tower, and roof and chimney-stack, seemeddrunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger-whenscores of objects, never seen before, burst out upon the view,and things the most familiar put on some new aspect--then the mobbegan to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, andclamour, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves tofeed the fire, and keep it at its height.