“Master,” cried the boy, suddenly, and Gray started as if he had been suddenly aroused by a trumpet at his ear. “What—a—what?” he cried. “Who spoke?” “I spoke, sir,” said the boy. “There’s a famous fire out Battersea way.” “A fire?” said Gray. “Yes,” said the boy, and he pointed with his finger in the direction from whence they came. “It’s a large fire; now it does burn, to be sure. Look, sir, there!” Gray turned half round upon his seat in the boat, and he saw that the heavens were illuminated with a dull, red glare in the direction to which the boy had pointed, and in that one particular spot there was a concentrated body of light from whence shot up in the sky myriads of bright sparks, and now and then a long tongue of flame which lit up the house, the shipping, and the river, with a bright and transitory glow. “It is—the house,” muttered Gray to himself; “my work prospers. Sir Frederick Hartleton, I have but one more wish, and that is, that your flesh was broiling in yon house along with your myrmidon whom you left to his fate.” “It’s a large fire,” remarked the boy. “A famous fire.” “Yes,” said Gray, “a famous fire; can you tell where it is?” “I think,” said the boy, “it lies somewhere over the marshes.” “Indeed.” “Yes; and I should say it was Forest’s old haunted house, only nobody lives there but the ghosts.” “Forest’s house,” repeated Gray, in an assumed careless tone. “Indeed I should not wonder if you were right.” “I hope it is,” said the boy. “It was an old miserable-looking place. You’ve heard about it, sir?” “A little—a little,” replied Gray. “There was a murder there once,” said the boy. “Yes,—yes, I—know,” said Gray. “Forest, you see, sir, lived in the house. He built it, you see, sir, and he wasn’t content with what he had, so he murdered a poor fellow, who they say had a thousand pounds belonging to somebody who employed him to collect rents, you see, sir.” “Yes,” said Gray, licking his lips. “Well, sir, Forest shot him.” “Shot him? Oh, yes. He—he shot him.” “He was hung, though,” added the boy, “and well he deserved it, too. My grandfather saw him hung on the common, not a hundred feet from his own door.—After that no one would live in the house, and, in course, old Forest’s ghost, and, the man’s ghost that he killed, took to being there. Well, it does flare now famously.” The fire seemed now at its height, for the flames rose to a tremendous height into the sky, and the roaring and crackling of the timbers could be distinctly heard, even at that distance from the spot of the conflagration.