Thus we landed, and entered the inferno.
The structures along the river were now nought but torrents of fire, liquid and rushing; whatever features as remained — lintels, doorframes, and roof-trees — were sketched with dark charcoal smudges in the midst of red activity. The city pier and square, however, afforded a place still for landing parties, and ’twas there we disembarked, formed, and began our mystified sortie. We progressed up past the Market House.
The streets were empty but of broken glass; the sky was black.
By the mast pond, where the great spars of ships lay refracted, we saw a little girl with a bucket, a vain and minute assay at extinguishing the flames. She looked upon our detachment with sullen terror as we marched by.
We crossed the Catherine Street Bridge to the more populous part of town, which now appeared without inhabitant. Watching for resistance, alert with alarums, we progressed past silent residences.
In some streets where no fire had yet reached, doors were ajar and windows smashed, prey to the depredations of rebel greed and the exercise of wrath.
In other avenues, there was no sign of the sack; gardens were unmolested; it had been any Monday morning, were the air not alive with insect ash, and were there a sun in the sky; were the sky above us not black; were there not a look of Judgment and the End.