Bags and his wife had stopt in a corner of the court to pack up their property in a commodious form for conveyance, and had witnessed this scene in silence. As soon as the soldier had, in compliance with Esther's entreaties, disappeared, Bags came forward. "And your father would be angry, would he, my dear?" said he. "Oh, very--oh, so angry! Please don't stop me," she said, trying to pass him. "And what'll ye give me not to tell him, now?" asked Mr Bags. "Ain't ye got nothing for me?" "No--oh, no--indeed, nothing. Do let me pass." "Yes, you have; you've got this, I think," said Bags, snatching at a silver-mounted comb glistening in her hair, which, thus loosened, all fell down on her shoulders as she darted past him. "And now," said Mr Bags, inspecting his prize, "I think me and that 'ere cheating Jew is quits for the silver fork. I'll allow it's plated now." CHAPTER III. Early the next morning (the 12th of April) a rumour went through the town that an English fleet was signalled as in sight. The news roused the starving people like electricity. The pale spectres of men that, on the previous day, had stalked so gauntly through the dreary streets--the wretched, sinking women, and children careworn as grandfathers--poured forth, with something like a natural light in their hollow eyes, to witness the joyful spectacle. The sea-wall of the city was like the margin of a vast pool of Bethesda, thronged with hopeful wretches awaiting the coming of the angel. The streets were instantly deserted. Those who could not leave their homes got on the housetops, but the great mass of the population spread itself along the line-wall, the Grand Parade and Alameda, and the heights skirting the chief slopes of the Rock. Moors and Jews, Spaniards and English, citizens and soldiers, men, women, and children, of all ages, grades, and nations, ranged themselves indiscriminately wherever they could obtain a view of the sea.