Having the benefit of Mr. Swifte's acquaintance, we were indulged with a view of the Jewel-room. It is really a curious contrast! Light, security, and splendour, changed into darkness, desolation, and vacancy--the regal treasury become an empty sepulchre! The tokens and the instruments of the violence used--broken railings, hatchets, and crow-bars--scattered about, as if "the gallant Colonel" had but just absconded! It was a comfort to think that the imperial crown, instead of being battered to bits in his bag, was safe and whole in the Governor's cellar. We have endeavoured, in our plate, to give light and life to the Jewel-room, now so desolate. Not the light of six Argands, flashing down on diadem and sceptre, and--brightest of all--on the crown of our liege lady's yet brighter brow, irradiating the matchless sapphire, blue as an Italian sky--the mound of diamonds, numerous as its stars--and the priceless ruby of Edward and of Henry, multiplying their thousand prisms:--but, alas! the blink of one or two ten-to-the-pound tallows--sheepish-looking members of the "Kitchiner" tribe--glimmering on them, ghastly as dead men's eyes out of a plundered coffin. And for the _life_ of the scene? There stood the keeper himself, his wife at his side, partaking the peril; and the warders, whom he had summoned to the rescue. We cannot, however, portray the stifling heat and smoke; the clamour of the soldiers outside the closed portal, which the fires of the Armoury were striving to reach; nor the roar of the still-excluded flames, the clang of the pumps, the hissing of the water-pipes, the gathering feet and voices of the multitude. These are beyond the pencil. "The pressure from without" increased. Again the clamour rose high, and the furnace heat rose higher. But the keeper abided his time--the crow-bars were raised in a dozen hands awaiting his word. It was given! The first blow since the days of King Charles descended on the iron fence; and Queen Victoria's crown, safely deposited in its case, and sheltered therein from smoke and flame and the common gaze, was removed to the Governor's house. Orbs, diadems, and sceptres--dishes, flagons, and chalices--the services of court and of church, of altar and of banquet, were sent forth in the care of many a sturdy warder, gallant JOHN LUND being their leader. The huge baptismal font, soon to be called into use for the Prince of Wales, was last removed. The Jewel-room was as bare as if Blood the First had left nought behind him for Blood the Second. How must the spectators have gazed on the bright procession, as from window, and roof, and turret, the Armoury blazed out upon it! And how must the Colonel's ghost have wondered to behold his own meditated prey borne through that fiery midnight! The Jewel-room was now emptied. The agents of its _emptification_ quitted the peril--glad enough were they, we'll be sworn--and all was again solitude and silence.