By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban,
      and all persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon
      their dismal solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch,
      nor the huge barriers erected at the entrances of the streets,
      nor the prospect of that loathsome death which, with almost
      absolute certainty, overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril could
      deter from the adventure, prevented the unfurnished and
      untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand of nightly
      rapine, of every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work,
      which could in any manner be turned to a profitable account. Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening
      of the barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had
      proved but slender protection to those rich stores of wines and
      liquors which, in consideration of the risk and trouble of
      removal, many of the numerous dealers having shops in the
      neighbourhood had consented to trust, during the period of exile,
      to so insufficient a security. But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who
      attributed these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-spirits, plague-goblins, and fever-demons, were the popular
      imps of mischief; and tales so blood-chilling were hourly told,
      that the whole mass of forbidden buildings was, at length,
      enveloped in terror as in a shroud, and the plunderer himself was
      often scared away by the horrors his own depreciations had
      created; leaving the entire vast circuit of prohibited district
      to gloom, silence, pestilence, and death. It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and
      which indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban, that,
      in scrambling down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin
      found their progress suddenly impeded. To return was out of the
      question, and no time was to be lost, as their pursuers were
      close upon their heels. With thorough-bred seamen to clamber up
      the roughly fashioned plank-work was a trifle; and, maddened with
      the twofold excitement of exercise and liquor, they leaped
      unhesitatingly down within the enclosure, and holding on their
      drunken course with shouts and yellings, were soon bewildered in
      its noisome and intricate recesses. Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their
      reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their
      situation. The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones,
      loosened from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall,
      rank grass, which sprang up around the feet and ankles. Fallen
      houses choked up the streets. The most fetid and poisonous smells
      everywhere prevailed;—and by the aid of that ghastly light which,
      even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and
      pestilential atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths
      and alleys, or rotting in the windowless habitations, the carcass
      of many a nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the plague
      in the very perpetration of his robbery. But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or
      impediments such as these, to stay the course of men who,
      naturally brave, and at that time especially, brimful of courage
      and of “humming-stuff,” would have reeled, as straight as their
      condition might have permitted, undauntedly into the very jaws of
      Death. Onward—still onward stalked the grim Legs, making the
      desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific
      war-whoop of the Indian; and onward, still onward rolled the
      dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active
      companion, and far surpassing the latter’s most strenuous
      exertions in the way of vocal music, by bull-roarings _in basso_,
      from the profundity of his stentorian lungs. They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence. Their way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more
      horrible—the paths more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones
      and beams falling momently from the decaying roofs above them,
      gave evidence, by their sullen and heavy descent, of the vast
      height of the surrounding houses; and while actual exertion
      became necessary to force a passage through frequent heaps of
      rubbish, it was by no means seldom that the hand fell upon a
      skeleton or rested upon a more fleshly corpse. Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a tall
      and ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill
      from the throat of the excited Legs, was replied to from within,
      in a rapid succession of wild, laughter-like, and fiendish
      shrieks. Nothing daunted at sounds which, of such a nature, at
      such a time, and in such a place, might have curdled the very
      blood in hearts less irrevocably on fire, the drunken couple
      rushed headlong against the door, burst it open, and staggered
      into the midst of things with a volley of curses. The room within which they found themselves proved to be the shop
      of an undertaker; but an open trap-door, in a corner of the floor
      near the entrance, looked down upon a long range of wine-cellars,
      whose depths the occasional sound of bursting bottles proclaimed
      to be well stored with their appropriate contents. In the middle
      of the room stood a table—in the centre of which again arose a
      huge tub of what appeared to be punch. Bottles of various wines
      and cordials, together with jugs, pitchers, and flagons of every
      shape and quality, were scattered profusely upon the board. Around it, upon coffin-tressels, was seated a company of six. This company I will endeavor to delineate one by one. Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his
      companions, sat a personage who appeared to be the president of
      the table. His stature was gaunt and tall, and Legs was
      confounded to behold in him a figure more emaciated than himself. His face was as yellow as saffron—but no feature excepting one
      alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously
      lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh
      superadded upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and
      dimpled into an expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes,
      as indeed the eyes of all at table, were glazed over with the
      fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was clothed from head to
      foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped
      negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak.