The orders of Roderick were as promptly obeyed as given; the monarch himself leading the way to the town, and assisting in endeavouring to quench the flames. The gates were thrown open, and men, women, and children rushed forth half naked, and were received and supplied with food and shelter by the army of the Irish hero. The Irish adored their sovereign; his valour, his rashness, and his romantic generosity, won their hearts; and even his most discontented soldiers loved whilst they blamed him: thus his will was law--nay, there was something so noble in his orders, that his soldiers were proud of implicitly obeying them, and not the meanest slave of the camp would have presumed to violate them in the slightest instance. The flames had now caught some cotton-mills on the river, which had been spared in the previous conflagration, and they burst forth in fresh volumes of fire, as the light materials they contained added fuel to the flames. The buildings in the town were mostly old, many of them wood, and some were large warehouses filled with the most combustible substances, which burnt with added fury as the long pointed flames lapped them into their devouring vortex; curling round them, and wrapping them in columns of fire as they, one by one, fell victims to their rage. The town was now half destroyed, and the flames were fast approaching the citadel; the governors of the city had been roused from their beds, and had taken refuge, half naked, in the camp of Roderick; but the prisoners yet remained in the citadel, shut up, however, in dungeons below the surface of the earth. Roderick had anxiously inquired of every one for Dr. Entwerfen, and at last, to his infinite horror, he learnt he was in this fated citadel; he rushed forward in agony to save him, for he knew that the powder was kept there. He was aware too, that the flames had already seized the fortress: long ere he could reach it, indeed, a tremendous explosion took place--a vast burst of fire rushed forth, scattering red flaming furniture, bricks, pillars, and every kind of rubbish in all directions, and then all sank to comparative darkness. The fire seemed to have spent its fury in that last effort, and, though it still feebly crept along in a half-smothered flame, its violence was passed. Dreadful, however, was the scene that now presented itself, for Seville was levelled with the dust. Black disfigured smoky ruins supplied the place of what had once been lofty towers and sumptuous palaces; the splendid cathedral, that had withstood the rage of centuries, was now no more; and human bodies lay in the streets, thrown in fearful heaps, some half burnt, and others blackened and dried by the scorching fury of the flames.