“Phui! You sheep,” cried Curio, contemptuously, mincing no words at that dread moment.  “How long will it be before there will be ten boatloads of soldiers alongside?  Can we beat off all Pompeius’s legions?”

Antonius caught up another paddle and passed it through a rower’s thong.

“Friends,” he said, with that ready command which his military life had given him, “these soldiers are in armour and can run none too swiftly.  Once show them the back, and they must throw away their arms or give over the chase.  It is madness to drift down upon the lower bridge.  We must turn across the river, risk the darts, and try to land on the farther bank.  Take oars!”

There was but one remaining paddle.  Drusus seized it and pushed against the water with so much force that the tough wood bent and creaked, but did not snap.  The unwieldy barge sluggishly answered this powerful pressure, and under the stroke of the three oars began to head diagonally across the current and move slowly toward the farther shore.  The soldiers did not at once perceive the intent of this move.  By their actions they showed that they had expected the barge to try to slip through the Pons Sublicius, and so escape down the river.  They had run some little way along the south bank of the Tiber, to reenforce their comrades at the lower bridge, when they saw the new course taken by their expected prey.  Much valuable time had thus been gained by the pursued, time which they needed sadly enough, for, despite their frantic rowing, their unwieldy craft would barely crawl across the current.

Long before the barge was within landing distance of the northern bank, the soldiers who had been on guard at the head of the Pons AEmilius had regained their former station, and were running along the shore to cut off any attempt there to escape.  Soon a whizzing javelin dug into the plank at Drusus’s feet, and a second rushed over Caelius’s head, and plashed into the water beyond the barge.  Other soldiers on the now receding southern bank were piling into a light skiff to second their comrades’ efforts by a direct attack on the fugitives.

A third dart grazed Antonius’s hair and buried its head in the pile of lumber.  The tribune handed his oar to Caelius, and, deliberately wresting the weapon from the timber, flung it back with so deadly an aim that one pursuing legionary went down, pierced through the breastplate.  The others recoiled for an instant, and no more javelins were thrown, which was some slight gain for the pursued.

It seemed, however, that the contest could have only a single ending.  The soldiers were running parallel and apace with the barge, which was now as close to the northern bank as was safe in view of the missiles.  The Pons Sublicius was getting minute by minute nearer, and upon it could be seen a considerable body of troops ready with darts and grapnels to cut off the last hope of escape.

But Antonius never withdrew his eye from the line of dark weatherbeaten warehouses that stretched down to the river’s edge on the north bank just above the Pons Sublicius.