The night was intensely dark when Sir Norman got into it once more; and

to any one else would have been intensely dismal, but to Sir Norman all

was bright as the fair hills of Beulah. When all is bright within, we

see no darkness without; and just at that moment our young knight had

got into one of those green and golden glimpses of sunshine that here

and there checker life's rather dark pathway, and with Leoline beside

him would have thought the dreary whores of the Dead Sea itself a very

paradise.

It was now near midnight, and there was an unusual concourse of people

in the sheets, waiting for St. Paul's to give the signal to light the

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fires. He looked around for Ormiston; but Ormiston was nowhere to be

seen--horse and rider had disappeared. His own horse stood tethered

where he had left him. Anxious as he was to ride back to the ruin, and

see the play played out, he could not resist the temptation of lingering

a brief period in the city, to behold the grand spectacle of the myriad

fires. Many persons were hurrying toward St. Paul's to witness it from

the dome; and consigning his horse to the care of the sentinel on guard

at the house opposite, he joined them, and was soon striding along, at

a tremendous pace, toward the great cathedral. Ere he reached it, its

long-tongued clock tolled twelve, and all the other churches, one after

another, took up the sound, and the witching hour of midnight rang and

rerang from end to end of London town. As if by magic, a thousand forked

tongues of fire shot up at once into the blind, black night, turning

almost in an instant the darkened face of the heavens to an inflamed,

glowing red. Great fires were blazing around the cathedral when they

reached it, but no one stopped to notice them, but only hurried on the

faster to gain their point of observation.

Sir Norman just glanced at the magnificent pile--for the old St. Paul's

was even more magnificent than the new,--and then followed after the

rest, through many a gallery, tower, and spiral staircase till the dome

was reached. And there a grand and mighty spectacle was before him--the

whole of London swaying and heaving in one great sea of fire. From one

end to the other, the city seemed wrapped in sheets of flame, and every

street, and alley, and lane within it shone in a lurid radiance far

brighter than noonday. All along the river fires were gleaming, too; and

the whole sky had turned from black to blood-red crimson. The streets

were alive and swarming--it could scarcely be believed that the

plague-infested city contained half so many people, and all were

unusually hopeful and animated; for it was popularly believed that these

fires would effectually check the pestilence. But the angry fiat of a

Mighty Judge had gone forth, and the tremendous arm of the destroying

angel was not to be stopped by the puny hand of man.




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