Part 24 (2/2)
”Yes, my lady. I have not heard of lives lost; and many say that it is good for some of the old houses to burn, that they may build better ones little by little. Now take this cordial, and sleep once more. I will awaken you when my lord returns.”
The lady obeyed, and soon slept again, her pulse stronger and firmer and her mind at rest.
But Dinah was growing very uneasy. Far though she was above the street, she heard shouts and cries--m.u.f.fled and distant truly, but very apparent to her strained faculties--all indicative of alarm and the presence of peril. She dared not leave her post at the bedside, but the air was becoming so thick with smoke that the patient coughed from time to time, and the nurse was not certain how much longer it would be possible to breathe in it. She was certain, too, that the place was becoming hot, increasingly hot, each minute.
Oh, where was Lord Desborough? why did he not come? At last she stole from the room and into the adjoining chamber, and then indeed an awful sight met her shrinking gaze.
A pillar of lambent flame, which seemed to her to be close at hand, was rising up in the air as though it reached the very heavens. It swayed slowly this way and that, surrounded by clouds of crimson smoke and a veritable furnace of sparks. Then, as she watched with awed and fascinated gaze, it suddenly seemed to make a bound towards the tower of St. Paul's standing up majestic and beautiful against the fiery sky. It fastened upon it like a living monster greedy of prey. Tongues of flame seemed to be licking it on all sides, and a ma.s.s of fire encircled it.
With a gasp of fear and horror Dinah turned away.
”St. Paul's on fire!” she exclaimed beneath her breath; ”G.o.d in His mercy have pity upon us! Can any one save us now?”
CHAPTER XIX. JUST IN TIME.
Lady Desborough sat up in bed propped up with pillows, dressed in such flowing garments as Dinah had been able to array her in, her eyes s.h.i.+ning in anxious expectation, her panting breath showing the oppression caused by the murkiness of the atmosphere. But in spite of the peril of the situation, to which she had now awakened with full comprehension; in spite of the fatigue of being partially dressed, with a view to sudden flight; in spite of the horror of knowing herself to be alone with Dinah in this flame-encircled house, her spirit rose to the occasion, triumphing over the weakness of the flesh. Dinah had feared that the knowledge of the peril would extinguish the faint flame of life; but it seemed rather to cause it to burn more strongly. The fragile creature looked full of courage, and the fears she experienced at this moment were less for herself than for others.
”My dear lord! my dear lord!” she kept repeating. ”Dinah, if he were living nothing would keep him from me. Where is he gone? Dost thou think he will return in time?”
”I think so, my dear lady,” answered Dinah in her full, quiet voice; ”I pray he may come soon!”
”Yes, pray for him, pray for him!” cried the lady clasping her hands, ”I have not prayed for him enough. Pray that his precious life may be preserved!”
Dinah clasped her hands and bent her head. Her whole faculties seemed merged in one great stress of urgent prayer. The lady looked at her and touched her hand gently.
”You are a good woman, Dinah Morse. I am glad to have you with me; but if my good lord come not soon, you must save yourself and fly.
I will not have you lose your life for me. You have not strength to bear me hence, and I cannot walk. You must fly and save yourself.
For me, if my dear lord be dead, life has nothing for me to desire it.”
”Madam,” answered Dinah, in her calm, resolute way, ”your good lord, my master, entrusted you to my care, and that charge I cannot and will not quit whatever may betide. G.o.d is with us in the midst of the fire as truly as He was in the raging of the plague. He brought me safe through the one peril, and I can trust Him for this second one. Our lives we may not recklessly cast away, neither may we fly from our post of duty lightly, and without due warrant.”
Lady Desborough's thin white fingers closed over Dinah's steady hand with a grateful pressure.
”Thou art a good woman, Dinah,” she said. ”Thy presence beside me gives me strength and hope. Truly I should dread to be left alone, and yet I would not have thee stay if the peril becomes great.”
”We will trust that help may reach us shortly,” answered Dinah, who realized the magnitude of the peril far more clearly than did the sick lady, who had no idea of the awful extent of the fire.
That it was a bad one she was well aware, and in perilous proximity to their dwelling; but Dinah had not told her, nor had she for a moment guessed, that half the city of London was already destroyed.
”Go and look from the windows,” she said a few minutes later, when the two had sat in silent prayer and meditation for that brief interval. ”Go see what is happening in the street below. I marvel that I hear so little stir of voices. But the walls are thick, and we are high up. Go and see what is pa.s.sing below, and bring me word again.”
Dinah was not loth to obey this behest, being terribly anxious to know what was happening around them. Neither by word nor by sign would she add to the anxieties of Lady Desborough, knowing how much might depend upon her calmness if the chance of rescue offered itself; but she herself began to entertain grave fears for the safety of this house, wedged in, as it appeared to her to be, between ma.s.ses of blazing buildings.
Running up to the top attics of the house, which commanded views almost every way, the sight which greeted her eyes was indeed appalling. The whole ma.s.s of St. Paul's grand edifice was alight, and the flames were rus.h.i.+ng up the walls like fiery serpents whilst the dull roar of the conflagration was like the booming of the breakers on an iron-bound coast. Grand and terrible was the sight presented by that vast sea of flame, which extended eastward as far as the eyes could see. It was more brilliantly light now, in the middle of the night, than in the brightest summer noontide, although the blood-red glare was terrible in its intensity, and brought to Dinah's spirit, with a shudder of horror, a vision of the bottomless pit with its eternal fires.
But without pausing to linger to watch the awful grandeur of the burning cathedral, she hastily pa.s.sed from attic to attic to see how matters were going in other quarters, and she soon discovered, to her dismay and anxiety, that the flames had crept around the little wedge-like block of buildings in which this mansion stood, and that they were literally ringed round by fire. By some caprice, or perhaps owing to its solidity of structure, this small three-cornered block, containing about three good houses, had not yet ignited; but the hungry flames were creeping on apace, and, as it seemed to Dinah, from all sides. As she took in this fact, it seemed to her that help could never reach them now, and that all they could do was to strive to meet death with as calm and bold a spirit as they could, commending their souls to G.o.d, and trusting that He would raise up their bodies at the last day, even though they might be consumed to ashes in the midst of this burning fire.
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