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 _rôle_ of dynamitard for that of an aërial _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.
For 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 stream 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 cross-currents often threatened my safety, and at last, sorely bruised and battered, with face scarlet with the scorching heat, found myself opposite the Queen’s Road. Here I seized my opportunity and, working clear of the stream, dodged in among a thinner crowd, wearied, but still intent on my purpose.