fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon

struggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel

Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire.

The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire,

scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce

figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke.

Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain;

the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished

like ice before the heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells

of flame. Great rents and splits branched out in the solid walls, like

crystallisation; stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into

the furnace; four fierce figures trudged away, East, West, North,

and South, along the night-enshrouded roads, guided by the

beacon they had lighted, towards their next destination. The

illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing

the lawful ringer, rang for joy.

Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire,

and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had

to do with the collection of rent and taxesthough it was but a

small instalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

in those latter daysbecame impatient fo