But Antonius’s brief parley had done its work.  As the bow of the barge shot under the bridge, Curio, with a single bound over the parapet, sprang on to its deck; after him leaped Quintus Cassius, and after him Caelius.  Before Drusus could follow, however, the stern of the barge had vanished under the archway.  The lictors and soldiers had sprung forward, but a second had been lost by rushing to the eastern side of the bridge, where the barge had just disappeared from sight.  Agias, Antonius, and Drusus were already standing on the western parapet.  The lictors and soldiers were on them in an instant.  The blow of one of the fasces smote down Antonius, but he fell directly into the vessel beneath—­stunned but safe.  A soldier caught Agias by the leg to drag him down.  Drusus smote the man under the ear so that he fell without a groan; but Agias himself had been thrown from the parapet on to the bridge; the soldiers were thronging around.  Drusus saw the naked steel of their swords flashing before his eyes; he knew that the barge was slipping away in the current.  It was a time of seconds, but of seconds expanded for him into eternities.  With one arm he dashed back a lictor, with the other cast Agias—­he never knew whence came that strength which enabled him to do the feat—­over the stonework, and into the arms of Curio in the receding boat.  Then he himself leaped.  A rude hand caught his cloak.  It was torn from his back.  A sword whisked past his head—­he never learned how closely.  He was in the air, saw that the barge was getting away, and next he was chilled by a sudden dash of water and Caelius was dragging him aboard; he had landed under the very stern of the barge.  Struggling in the water, weighed down by their armour, were several soldiers who had leaped after him and had missed their distance completely.

The young man clambered on to the rude vessel.  Its crew (two simple, harmless peasants) were cowering among the lumber.  Curio had seized one of the paddles and was guiding the craft out into the middle of the current; for the soldiers were already running along the wharves and preparing to fling their darts.  The other men, who had just been plucked out of the jaws of destruction, were all engaged in collecting their more or less scattered wits and trying to discover the next turn of calamity in store.  Antonius—­who, despite his fall, had come down upon a coil of rope and so escaped broken bones and serious bruises—­was the first to sense the great peril of even their present situation.

“In a few moments,” he remarked, casting a glance down the river, “we shall be under the Pons Sublicius, and we shall either be easily stopped and taken, or crushed with darts as we pass by.  You see they are already signalling from the upper bridge to their guard at the lower.  We shall drift down into their hands, and gain nothing by our first escape.”

“Anchor,” suggested Cassius, who was an impulsive and rather inconsiderate man.  And he prepared to pitch overboard the heavy mooring-stone.