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.