The whole great mass were mad.
A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what it meant.
But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, and drop from its
topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright
still, because of the bar, and its having sunk, of its own weight, into
the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the
doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and
dark. Pile up the fire!
It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They vainly
tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in
readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling
on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen
to pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could hold out no longer.
The keeper, and his officers, and their wives and children, were
escaping. Pile up the fire!
The door sank down again: it settled deeper in the
cinders--tottered--yielded--was down!
As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a clear
space about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hugh
leapt upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the
air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his
dress, dashed into the jail.
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