trampling on any of the people. I found they had already applied ladders
to the walls of the apartment, and were well provided with buckets, but
the water was at some distance. These buckets were about the size of a
large thimble, and the poor people supplied me with them as fast as they
could; but the flame was so violent that they did little good. I might
easily have stifled it with my coat, which I unfortunately left behind
me for haste, and came away only in my leathern jerkin. The case seemed
wholly desperate and deplorable, and this magnificent palace would have
infallibly been burnt down to the ground, if, by a presence of mind
unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an expedient by which in
three minutes the fire was wholly extinguished, and the rest of that
noble pile, which had cost so many ages in erecting, preserved from
destruction.

[Illustration]

It was now daylight, and I returned to my house, without waiting to
congratulate with the emperor; because, although I had done a very
eminent piece of service, yet I could not tell how his majesty might
resent the manner by which I had performed it: for, by the fundamental
laws of the realm, it is capital in any man, of what quality soever, to
even touch the empress or the royal princesses without invitation. But I
was a little comforted by a message from his majesty, that he would give
orders to the grand justiciary for passing my pardon in form, which,
however, I could not obtain. And I was privately assured that the
empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of me, and, in the presence
of her chief confidants, could not forbear vowing revenge.