up and live. There, too, I sacrificed the unborn children of my
mind. All that I had accomplished--all that I planned for future
years--has perished by one common ruin, and left only this heap
of embers! The deed has been my fate. And what remains? A weary
and aimless life,--a long repentance of this hour,--and at last
an obscure grave, where they will bury and forget me!"

As the author concluded his dolorous moan, the extinguished
embers arose and settled down and arose again, and finally flew
up the chimney, like a demon with sable wings. Just as they
disappeared, there was a loud and solitary cry in the street
below us. "Fire!" Fire! Other voices caught up that terrible
word, and it speedily became the shout of a multitude. Oberon
started to his feet, in fresh excitement.

"A fire on such a night!" cried he. "The wind blows a gale, and
wherever it whirls the flames, the roofs will flash up like
gunpowder. Every pump is frozen up, and boiling water would turn
to ice the moment it was flung from the engine. In an hour, this
wooden town will be one great bonfire! What a glorious scene for
my next--Pshaw!"

The street was now all alive with footsteps, and the air full of
voices. We heard one engine thundering round a corner, and
another rattling from a distance over the pavements. The bells of
three steeples clanged out at once, spreading the alarm to many a
neighboring town, and expressing hurry, confusion, and terror, so
inimitably that I could almost distinguish in their peal the
burden of the universal cry,--"Fire! Fire! Fire!"