"Buckle on your sword, lad, and leave your purse behind you. A fire ever attracts thieves and cut-throats, who flock round in hopes of stealing something in the confusion. Besides, as I have told you before, you should never go out after dark without your sword, even were it but to cross the road."
Cyril ran upstairs to his room, buckled on his weapon, and ran down again.
"The Captain is right," John Wilkes said, as he joined him at the door. "After your two adventures, it would be folly for you to go out unarmed."
"Oh, I expect they have forgotten about me long ago," Cyril laughed lightly.
"I don't know," John Wilkes said seriously. "As to Marner's gang, I think that there is not much fear from them, unless that young rascal Robert and the scoundrel who was with him have returned from Holland; and that they are not likely to do for some time to come. But it would not be in human nature if the man you call John Harvey should take his defeat without trying to pay you back for that wound you gave him, for getting Mistress Nellie out of his hands, and for making him the laughing-stock of his comrades. I tell you that there is scarce an evening that I have gone out but some fellow passes me before I have gone twenty yards, and, as he brushes my sleeve, turns his head to look at me. But yesternight I said to one who so behaved, 'Look here, mate, this is not the first time you have run against me. I warn you that if it happens again I will crack your head with my cudgel.' The fellow went off, muttering and grumbling, but I have no doubt that he and the others, for it certainly was not always the same man, were watching for you. To-night there was no one about, or, if there was, he did not come near me, and it may be that, finding you never leave the house after nightfall, they have decided to give it up for the present. But I thought I heard a footfall lower down the street, just as we came out of the house, and it is like enough that we are followed now."
"At any rate, they would scarce attack two of us, John, and I should not mind if they did. It is a stab in the back that I am afraid of more than an open quarrel."
"You may have a better swordsman to deal with next time. The fellow himself would scarcely care to cross swords with you again, but he would have no difficulty in getting half-a-dozen cut-throats from the purlieus of the Temple or Westminster, professional bullies, who are ready to use their swords to those who care to purchase them, and who would cut a throat for a few crowns, without caring a jot whose throat it was. Some of these fellows are disbanded soldiers. Some are men who were ruined in the wars. Some are tavern bullies—broken men, reckless and quarrelsome gamblers so long as they have a shilling in their pockets, but equally ready to take to the road or to rob a house when their pockets are empty."
By this time they had passed the Exchange into Cheapside. Many people were hurrying in the same direction and wondering where the fire was. Presently one of the Fire Companies, with buckets, ladders, and axes, passed them at a run. Even in Cheapside the glow in the sky ahead could be plainly seen, but it was not until they passed St. Paul's and stood at the top of Ludgate Hill that the flames, shooting up high in the air, were visible. They were almost straight ahead.
"It must be at the other end of Fleet Street," Cyril said, as they broke into a run.
"Farther than that, lad. It must be one of the mansions along the Strand. A fire always looks closer than it is. I have seen a ship in flames that looked scarce a mile away, and yet, sailing with a brisk wind, it took us over an hour to come up to it."