Suddenly now the boy let his oars rest in the water, and the boat no longer urged forward, moved but sluggishly. His eyes seemed to be fixed on something. Now he lifted one hand and shaded them, while he looked earnestly in the direction from whence he had been coming.
Gray for a moment did not seem conscious that the boat was making no progress, but in fact slowly turning broadside to the stream, and Ada, if she did notice it, preserved her silence and calmness, for she neither moved nor spoke.
“Master,” cried the boy, suddenly, and Gray started as if he had been suddenly aroused by a trumpet at his ear.
“What—a—what?” he cried. “Who spoke?”
“I spoke, sir,” said the boy. “There’s a famous fire out Battersea way.”
“A fire?” said Gray.
“Yes,” said the boy, and he pointed with his finger in the direction from whence they came. “It’s a large fire; now it does burn, to be sure. Look, sir, there!”
Gray turned half round upon his seat in the boat, and he saw that the heavens were illuminated with a dull, red glare in the direction to which the boy had pointed, and in that one particular spot there was a concentrated body of light from whence shot up in the sky myriads of bright sparks, and now and then a long tongue of flame which lit up the house, the shipping, and the river, with a bright and transitory glow.
“It is—the house,” muttered Gray to himself; “my work prospers. Sir Frederick Hartleton, I have but one more wish, and that is, that your flesh was broiling in yon house along with your myrmidon whom you left to his fate.”
“It’s a large fire,” remarked the boy. “A famous fire.”