Suddenly he saw a woman who, pushed and crowded by the mob, stumbled and fell. In a moment he had dragged her to her feet. Swept onward by the rush, knocked this way and that, he still managed to support her until a blinding flash split the air in front, and the crash of musketry almost in his face hurled him back. Men threw up their hands and sank in a heap or spun round and pitched headlong. For a moment he swayed in the drifting smoke. A blast of hot, sickening air enveloped him. Then a dull red cloud seemed to settle slowly, crushing, grinding him into the earth.