While these agonizing thoughts were lacerating his bosom, he raised his eyes towards the east wing of the building, in which she lay, and he was startled to see the gratings strongly defined against a bright, ruddy light shining within!
What was the matter that the deadly darkness of this massive structure, which an instant before had seemed but a shapeless mass of shadows piled up against the midnight sky, should now be illumined so ominously? Was she ill? dying? Heaven, in its mercy, grant that she might be!
But while he gazed with suspended breath, the lighted row of gratings suddenly darkened, and belched forth volumes of lurid smoke, pierced by tongues of flame!
The Prison was on Fire!
“Oh, Heaven! she might escape her impending doom, but only perishing by the most fearful of deaths!—perishing by fire with hundreds of others!”
He rushed to the gate, seized the iron handle of the bell that communicated with the door-keeper’s room, and rang it loudly.
Another moment, and the great bell of the prison sounded from the tower, rousing by its deep-toned thunder all the sleepers of the neighborhood, while cries of “Fire! fire! fire!” burst in every tone of terror, anguish, and despair from the inmates of the burning building.
Still but another instant, and crowds of half-dressed men and even women, who seemed to have started up from the depths of the earth in the darkness of the night, came pouring towards the building. The great gates were opened—when, how, or by whom Malcolm scarcely knew. Bewildered by his trouble, he was carried with the crowd and hurried on until he found himself in the great hall of the prison.
Within, as without, the most fearful panic prevailed. Warders, turnkeys, and door-keepers, roused from deep sleep by the horrid alarm of fire, hurried hither and thither like men bereft of their senses.
In the ward where Eudora’s cell was situated the darkness was intense and the smoke suffocating. Malcolm, who had hastened thither, could scarcely breathe the air. While blindly making his way towards her door, from which he heard the voice of the wardress shrieking “Fire!” and “Help!” he felt rather than saw two figures meet in the darkness.