A vast conflagration, fanned by a violent east wind, was consuming the military prison and the barracks. The flames, driven in eddying whirls, climbed stone walls, crowned burning roofs, leaped from gaping window-frames; and the black towers of Munkholm now shone in a red and ominous light, now vanished in a dense cloud of smoke. A turnkey, who was escaping by the courtyard, told them hastily that the fire had broken out in the monster’s cell during the sleep of Hans of Iceland’s keepers, he having been imprudently allowed to have a fire and straw. “How unlucky I am!” cried Orugix, when he heard this story; “now I suppose Hans of Iceland has slipped through my hands too. The rascal must have been burned; and I sha’n’t even get his body, for which I paid two ducats!” Meantime, the unfortunate Munkholm musketeers, roused suddenly from their sleep by imminent death, crowded toward the door only to find it closely barred. Their shrieks of anguish and despair were heard outside; they stood at the blazing windows, wringing their hands, or dashed themselves madly upon the flagging of the court, escaping one death to meet another. The victorious flames devoured the entire structure before the rest of the garrison could come to the rescue. All help was vain. Luckily, the building stood by itself. The door was broken in with hatchets, but it was too late; for as it opened, the burning roof and floors gave way, and fell upon the unfortunate men with a loud crash. The entire building disappeared in a whirlwind of fiery dust and burning smoke, which stifled the faint moans of the expiring men. Next morning nothing was left in the courtyard but four high walls, black and smoking, around a horrid mass of smouldering ruins still devouring each other like wild beasts in a circus. When the pile had cooled, it was searched. Beneath a heap of stones and iron beams, twisted out of shape by the flames, was found a mass of whitened bones and disfigured corpses; with some thirty soldiers, most of whom were crippled, this was all that remained of the crack regiment of Munkholm. When the site of the prison was searched, and they reached the fatal cell where the fire had broken out, and where Hans of Iceland had been imprisoned, they found the remains of a human body close beside an iron pan and a heap of broken chains. It was curious that among these ashes there were two skulls, although there was but one skeleton. LI. _Saladin._ Bravo, Ibrahim! you are indeed the messenger of good fortune; I thank you for your joyful tidings. _The Mameluke._ Well, is that all? _Saladin._ What did you expect? _The Mameluke._ Nothing more for the messenger of good fortune. LESSING: _Nathan the Wise._