Even in that awful moment Antony did not lose sight of his captor. With his whole soul fiercely bent on getting away from him, he saw him start back and shout with terror. With his eye fixed upon him, he heard the rapid jabber of a terrified man behind him shrieking out that a lantern had fallen and broken, setting fire to a pool of turpentine which had leaked from a barrel on the after deck, and the fire spreading at once to the barrel, it had burst and flooded the boat with flame. Still watching him, he heard the screamed order to reverse the engines, and amidst howls and cries of anguish and despair, and cursing and praying, and the heavy thump of men and women falling in swoon upon the deck, or trampling and fighting over each other in their frantic desperation, while the advancing flame leaped and writhed, crackling and bristling and roaring furiously on—amidst all the horror and Bedlam confusion of that minute—for it was but one—standing still, with his eye riveted on his captor, he heard the ponderous clank, the long wash and wallow, and felt the boat drift backward to gain the middle of the stream. That instant he sprang backward, and rushing through the crowd, kicked off his shoes, and leaped into the river. He emerged presently from his plunge, amidst a shower of fiery cinders, with the lifting surges all aglare around him, and struck boldly forward for the levee, seeing at a glance the burning mass drift behind him, and all the illuminated ships at the piers and in the stream suddenly alive with shouting figures. Turning for an instant, and treading water, he saw the boat clanking backward, with her black funnels rising from a leaping and coiling mountain of smoke and flame, her passengers all huddled forward in a dense, shrieking mass, black against the fiery glow, and figures jumping into the water—which was already dotted with dark, swimming forms, and looked like a turbulent sea of flame ignited from the spectre of a burning boat below its surface. Among the swimming figures there was, perhaps, not one but was his enemy—not one who would not hale him back to the bondage from which he was struggling away. Turning again, he swam on, heading against the ponderous current which would bear him down past the city and out to sea. Boats were putting out in all directions from ships in the stream, and from the shore, to pick up the swimmers, many of whom were swimming in front of him, or clinging to pieces of drift-wood or furniture. To avoid being picked up by any of the boats was a necessary part of his task, for they, too, were manned by his enemies. Reaching a large brig anchored in the stream, with a few sailors standing on the bulwarks and in the rigging, watching the burning vessel, he resolved to cling to its rudder a few moments to recover breath, and as he approached it, looking up through the shadow, made luminous by the wan light of the moon, and the reflected glare of the water, he read on