When he lowered his lantern, he was aware of a lurid light in the sky above the embankment, and saw now and then a brilliant spark thrown up. That there was a fire somewhere he could not doubt, and concluded that the rioters who had cut the embankment were continuing their incendiary work as before. He could not see the wheel of fire; he was too low down for that, but he saw the illumination caused by it. Suddenly his feet gave way, and he fell in the water. He had gone into one of the deepest cart-ruts. As he fell, his lantern was extinguished. It was now impossible for him to return. He could not, if he wished it, have retraced his steps. His only possible course was to scramble up the bank, and to do this he now devoted all his energies. But unhappily he had reached precisely that point where the bank had been cut through, and was therefore exposed to the full force of the outrush of the river. As, by a desperate effort, he recovered his feet, he could see the lip of water curling over, reddened by the reflection of the fire beyond. He was drenched in the ice-cold water, but that was nothing to the anguish in his feet; they were turning dead, numbed by the water in which they had been immersed so long without proper protection. But this was not all. No sooner had Drownlands reached the slope of the embankment than he became aware that the little assistance rendered him by the frost was at an end. The rush of water had broken up the gault of which the bank was formed, was eating at every moment farther into it, and widening the mouth by which it poured from the bed of the river upon the low reclaimed land. The moistened marl was greasy under his feet. When he slipped and endeavoured to catch at the bank, his hands sank into the sodden clay, and the tenacious matter held his fingers like glue. His feet, moreover, went deep into the clay, and to extract them was difficult. It became apparent to Drownlands that he must battle for his life against the current. He endeavoured to assist himself in his ascent by the staff of the flail, but this proved of no help to him, as it sank with the pressure applied to it in the glutinous mass. He strove to heave himself up, and could not; his feet, dead with cold, and, through their loss of sensation, no longer able to feel the bottom, slipped from under him. He could not extract his staff from the marl. All he was able to do was to cling to it, and pant and recover breath, and then make another desperate effort forward.