The heat now became overpowering. Drifting clouds of smoke obscured the calm evening sky, and spread like a pall overhead. In spite of all efforts, the fierce conflagration gained continually on the men; it leaped over a space between the buildings, and attacked a block of warehouses on the opposite side. The roaring of the flames, the thick smoke, and the curious, disagreeable smells arising from the various goods which were burning, became almost unbearable. The men suffered greatly from exhaustion; and Mr. Braidwood, seeing their distress, procured refreshments. He was dividing them among the men as he stood near the second building which had caught fire, when again a loud explosion rent the air, and the wall of the warehouse was seen to be falling. "Run for your lives!" was the cry; and the men, seized for once with panic, rushed away. Mr. Braidwood and a gentleman with him followed; but unhappily they were not in time, and with a loud crash the huge wall fell upon them, and crushed them to the ground with tons of heavy masonry. "Let us save them!" cried the men; and a score hurried to the spot. But again a third explosion occurred, a mass of burning material was hurled on the fatal heap, all around fell the fire, and rescue was seen to be hopeless. [Illustration: THE TOOLEY STREET FIRE, 1861.] As if in triumph, the flames swept on and mounted higher. Wharf after wharf was involved, and warehouse after warehouse. The Depôt Wharf, Chamberlain's Wharf, and others caught fire. Night seemed turned into day by the blaze. Ships near the wharves, laden with the same inflammable materials of oil, and tar, and tallow, became ignited; and the blazing liquids poured out on the river, forming a lake of fire a quarter-mile long by a hundred yards wide. People crowded everywhere to see the sight. They thronged house-tops and church-steeples. Boatmen ventured near to pick up such goods as they might be able to find, and were threatened with dire peril. Some fainted from the heat. A barge drifted near with three men aboard, who were so overcome that they could not manage their cumbersome craft; a skiff approached sufficiently near to rescue the men, after which the barge drifted nearer still, and was burnt. Though greatly dispirited by the loss of their captain, the firemen fought doggedly on. But still their efforts seemed unavailing. Flakes of fire fell in all directions, and huge volumes of flame flashed upward to the sky. The whole of Bermondsey seemed in peril, and at one period the fire blazed for close upon a quarter-mile along the river-bank. Through the night more engines clattered up from distant stations, and the firemen fought the flames at every step of their destructive career. Tons of water were poured upon each building as it became threatened, only, however, to yield in course of time.