"Your majesty overwhelms me," replied Leonard, falling on his knee and pressing the king's hand, which was kindly extended towards him, to his lips. "I can scarcely persuade myself I am not in a dream."

"You will soon awaken to the sense of the joyful reality," returned the king. "Have I not now discharged my debt?" he added to Rochester.

"Right royally, indeed, my liege," replied the earl, in a tone of unaffected emotion. "My lord," he added, grasping Leonard's hand, "I sincerely congratulate you on your newly-acquired dignities, nor less in the happiness that awaits you there."

"If I do not answer you fittingly, my lord," replied the new-made peer, "it is not because I do not feel your kindness. But my brain reels. Pray Heaven my senses may not desert me."

"You must not forget the document you obtained this morning, my lord," replied Rochester, endeavouring to divert his thoughts into a new channel. "The proper moment for consulting it may have arrived."

Lord Argentine, for we shall henceforth give him his title, thrust his hand into his doublet, and drew forth the parchment. He opened it, and endeavoured to read it, but a mist swam before his eyes.

"Let me look at it," said Rochester, taking it from him. "It is a deed of gift," he said, after glancing at it for a moment, "from the late Lord Argentine -- I mean the elder baron -- of a large estate in Yorkshire, which he possessed in right of his wife, to you, my lord, here described as Leonard Holt, provided you shall marry the Lady Isabella Argentine. Another piece of good fortune. Again and again, I congratulate you."

"And now," said Charles, "other and less pleasing matters claim our attention. Let the Lady Isabella be removed, under the charge of Doctor Hodges, to Whitehall, where apartments shall be provided for her at once, together with fitting attendants, and where she can remain till this terrible conflagration is over which, I trust, soon will be, when I will no longer delay her happiness, but give her away in person. Chiffinch," he added to the chief page, "see all this is carried into effect."

"I will, my liege, and right willingly," replied Chiffinch.

"I would send you with her, my lord," pursued Charles to Argentine, "but I have other duties for you to fulfil. The plan you proposed of demolishing the houses with gunpowder shall be immediately put into operation, under your own superintendence."

A chair was now brought, and the Lady Isabella, after a tender parting with her lover, being placed within it, she was thus transported, under the charge of Hodges and Chiffinch, to Whitehall, where she arrived in safety, though not without having sustained some hindrance and inconvenience.

She had not been gone many minutes, when the conflagration of the cathedral assumed its most terrific character; the whole of the mighty roof falling in, and the flames soaring upwards, as before related. Up to this time, Solomon Eagle had maintained his position at the eastern end of the roof, and still grasped the stone cross. His situation now attracted universal attention, for it was evident he must speedily perish.

"Poor wretch!" exclaimed the king, shuddering, "I fear there is no way of saving him."

"None, whatever my liege," replied Rochester, "nor do I believe he would consent to it if there were. But he is again menacing your majesty."

As Rochester spoke, Solomon Eagle shook his arm menacingly at the royal party, raising it aloft, as if invoking the vengeance of Heaven. He then knelt down upon the sloping ridge of the roof, as if in prayer, and his figure, thus seen relieved against the mighty sheet of flame, might have been taken for an image of Saint John the Baptist carved in stone. Not an eye in the vast crowd below but was fixed on him. In a few moments he rose again, and tossing his arms aloft, and shrieking, in a voice distinctly heard above the awful roar around him, the single word ""Resurgam!"" flung himself headlong into the flaming abyss. A simultaneous cry of horror rose from the whole assemblage on beholding this desperate action.

"The last exclamation of the poor wretch may apply to the cathedral, as well as to himself," remarked the monarch, to a middle-aged personage, with a pleasing and highly intellectual countenance, standing near him: "for the old building shall rise again, like a phoenix from its fires, with renewed beauty, and under your superintendence, Doctor Christopher Wren."

The great architect bowed. "I cannot hope to erect such another structure," he said, modestly; "but I will endeavour to design an edifice that shall not disgrace your majesty's city."

"You must build me another city at the same time, Doctor Wren," sighed the king. "Ah!" he added, "is not that Mr. Lilly, the almanac-maker, whom I see among the crowd?"

"It is," replied Rochester.

"Bid him come to me," replied the king. And the order being obeyed, he said to the astrologer, "Well, Mr. Lilly, your second prediction has come to pass. We have had the Plague, and now we have the Fire. You may thank my clemency that I do not order you to be cast into the flames, like the poor wretch who has just perished before our eyes, as a wizard and professor of the black art. How did you obtain information of these fatal events?"

"By a careful study of the heavenly bodies, sire," replied Lilly, "and by long and patient calculations, which, if your majesty or any of your attendants had had leisure or inclination to make, would have afforded you the same information. "I" make no pretence to the gift of prophecy, but this calamity was predicted in the last century."

"Indeed! by whom?" asked the king.

"By Michael Nostradamus," replied Lilly; "his prediction runs thus: --

'La sang du juste à Londres fera faute, Bruslez par feu, le vingt et trois, les Six; La Dame antique cherra de place haute, De même secte plusieurs seront occis.'[1]

And thus I venture to explain it. The 'blood of the just' refers to the impious and execrable murder of your majesty's royal father of blessed memory. 'Three-and-twenty and six' gives the exact year of the calamity; and it may likewise give us, as will be seen by computation hereafter, the amount of habitations to be destroyed. The 'Ancient Dame' undoubtedly refers to the venerable pile now burning before us, which, as it stands in the most eminent spot in the city, clearly 'falls from its high place.' The expression 'of the same sect' refers not to men, but churches, of which a large number, I grieve to say it, are already destroyed."

[Footnote 1:

'The blood of the just shall be wanting in London, Burnt by fire of three-and-twenty, the Six; The ancient Dame shall fall from her high place, Of the same sect many shall be killed.']

"The prophecy is a singular one," remarked Charles, musingly "and you have given it a plausible interpretation." And for some moments he appeared lost in reflection. Suddenly rousing himself, he took forth his tablets, and hastily tracing a few lines upon a leaf, tore it out, and delivered it with his signet-ring to Lord Argentine. "Take this, my lord," he said, "to Lord Craven. You will find him at his post in Tower-street. A band of my attendants shall go with you. Embark at the nearest stairs you can -- those at Blackfriars I should conceive the most accessible. Bid the men row for their lives. As soon as you join Lord Craven, commence operations. The Tower must be preserved at all hazards. Mark me! -- at all hazards."

"I understand your majesty," replied Argentine -- "your commands shall be implicitly obeyed. And if the conflagration has not gone too far, I will answer with my life that I preserve the fortress." And he departed on his mission.