Thus far I had fared unexpectedly well. By the luckiest of chances I had alighted without having been observed, and this was the more remarkable seeing that the Park swarmed with noisy multitudes which I could not have sighted from the trap-hole. Not thirty yards from my landing-place some brawl or outrage was in progress, and the deep curses of men mingled with the shrieks and appeals of women told me that it was no mild one. As I neared the Bayswater Road, I came upon crowds of fugitives from the fire, and the almost equally cruel mob, now master of the streets. Delicate ladies and children, invalids shivering in their wraps, aristocrats, plutocrats, and tradespeople were huddled into groups of the oddest imaginable composition. Many of the men carried weapons, and it was well for them and their convoys when they did so, for bands of ruffians 169were prowling round robbing, insulting, and murdering at random. One savage brute rushed at me, but a seasonable click of my revolver sufficed to sober him. All this time I was being devoured by anxiety. The terrible licence here boded no good for Carshalton Terrace, always supposing the Northertons had received no benefit from the guarded hints given to Mrs. Hartmann. Bearing in mind my interview with the old lady, I had grave cause to fear that these hints had been far too vaguely worded, in which case nothing was more likely than that they had been ignored. Who, unless clearly warned, would have looked for a revolution so sudden and mysterious as this? Hartmann had wished to spare his mother new revelations during his short visit, but he had of course wished also to warn her of these impending horrors. He might have well fallen between two stools, and robbed his well-meant caution of the emphasis and impressiveness it called for. The upshot of the night proved that my fears were only too well founded.

A bright light shot downwards from the sky on a patch of buildings which were immediately lapped in flames. I understood; the drama was running into its third act; the Attila, then soaring some two miles away over Kensington, had exchanged the r?le of 170dynamitard for that of an a?rial pétroleuse. A more frightful conception had surely never entered the mind of man. All the more reason for despatch in case things had gone wrong at the Terrace. Hurriedly fighting my way out of the Park, I joined the tumultuous yelling mob that flowed like a river in freshet along the Bayswater Road in the direction of Notting Hill. But what a gauntlet I had to run! The mansions lining the thoroughfare were being looted by the dozen and their inmates shamefully maltreated or butchered, while in many places the hand of the incendiary was crowning the work of destruction. It was opposite these last-mentioned places that the struggles of the mob were most arduous. After a house had been alight for some time, the passage past it necessarily became dangerous, but owing to the steady pressure of the mass of people from behind, no one once entangled in the mob could hope to avoid it. Numberless deaths occurred by the mere forcing of the fringe of the crowd on to the red-hot pavements, and into the yellow and ruddy mouths of the outleaping jets of flame, and these deaths were terrible sights to witness.
171

OVER KENSINGTON.

172For myself I had seen from the first that the press could no more be stemmed by me than rapids can be stemmed by a cork. One could get into the 173stream easily enough, but getting free of it was quite out of the question. It was a case of navigating between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side I saw men and women crushed, trampled on, and suffocated against the railings. On the other I saw scores forced into the flames which their own comrades had kindled. The safest place was in the current that was now sweeping me along, a current which ran some three feet off the pavement on the left, a place fairly out of reach of the flames and blasts of heat from the houses on the opposite side. By dint of great efforts I managed to keep in this, though strong ............