“Oh, Ellen! if you had seen it! It stands there, all in ruins—the whole city in ruins! It has been the work of some great storm which fired it when all were gone or dead; for there has been no pulling down, no pillage, no aid, no attempt to stop the fire! All the palaces, all the museums, all the stores of learning and art, the streets, the crowded houses; they are gone, Ellen—they are all gone!”
His wife had never before in all their misery seen him so deeply moved—so nearly overpowered by any thing that had occurred. His excitement communicated itself to her, and she caught the full bearing of his narration. She felt for the long ages of story, and the monuments of human skill, buried in the great city. Irretrievable ruin! The work which men, and years, and glowing knowledge, had slowly raised up, all dead, all annihilated so suddenly. They sat talking of it very long before Ellen said,
“And what must we do now, Paulett?”
“We must go on, Ellen; we must travel further. The rest we hoped for is destroyed with the city, and we must press forward if we are to save our lives.”
“That seems less and less possible,” said Ellen; “and in all this destruction why should we be preserved?”
“Perhaps because we have as yet avoided the stroke, by using all our human skill; perhaps because a new race is to spring from us, who shall reign in another mighty London! Alas, London!—alas, the great city!”
Several times during the night Ellen heard Paulett murmur to himself words of lament over the fallen city; and when he slept, his rest was agitated, and his frame seemed trembling under the emotions of the day.
It was resolved that Ellen should rest a little while in their present habitation, before undertaking the toils of further travel. They intended to make for the coast, sure of a dry channel to the opposite shore, and hoping to reach some of the great continental towns before their store of diamonds should be utterly exhausted. In the meantime, Paulett was bent upon taking his boy through the ruins of London, and impressing upon him the memory of the place, and its great events. So the next day, leaving Ellen and the little Alice together, he and Charles began their pilgrimage through the mighty ruins. The event must have occurred very many months ago, for the ruins were perfectly cold, and the winds had toppled down the walls of all the more fragile buildings; so that the streets lay in confusion over one another, and it was impossible, except by other marks, to recognise the localities. Paulett and Charles clambered over the fallen walls, and would have been bewildered among heaps of masonry, and houses shaken from their base and blackened by fire—only that over the desolate prospect they saw, and Paulett marked the bearings of St Paul’s, the chief part of whose dome rose high in the air, though a huge rent let the daylight through it, and threatened a speedy fall. There was here and there a spire, rising perfect over the ruins; there were remains of Whitehall, strong though blackened, seen over a long view of prostrate streets; and in the distance beyond, fragments of Westminster Abbey showed themselves in the sunlight, though defaced and crumbled, as if the frame had been too ancient to resist the fire. Guided by these landmarks, Paulett traced out the plan of the city, and by degrees recognised where the great streets had run, where the palaces had stood, where the river had flowed. And all was silent, all an absolute stillness, where there had been such ceaseless voices, and sounds of life; the libraries were burned, the statues calcined, the museums in ashes; the mind of man, which triumphs over the body, had here been subdued by matter, and left no trace of itself.
“Oh! London, London! So much talent, so much glory and beauty; such mighty hearts, such mighty works; such ages of story—all buried in one black mass! Piteous spectacle!” cried Paulett, striking his breast, and stretching forth his arms over the skeleton of what was once a sovereign in the world.
He took his son by the hand, and led him over the confused masses, telling him as they went along what were the ruins by which they passed.