Pushing the reeking keg in front of him, he inched forward until he began to draw direct fire from the musketeers manning the barricade, no more than ten yards away. Then he gave the keg a panicky shove and backed away. His intention had been to pour the remainder of the lamp-oil into the gutter and use it as a sort of liquid fuse. But here events overtook him. For Yevgeny had come up with the idea of trying to set fire to the barricade, and had fashioned a sort of burning lance from a spear and an oily rag. As Jack watched from the gutter, Yevgeny fired a pistol alongside this contrivance, igniting it; then he stepped out into the street and immediately took a musket-ball in the ribs. He paused, stepped farther into the street, and took another in the thigh. But these wounds apparently did not even qualify as painful by Russian standards, and so with perfect aplomb he hefted the flaming harpoon, judged the distance, then hopped forward three times on his good leg and hurled it towards the powder-keg. Another musket-ball hit him in the left wrist and spun him around. He fell like a toppled oak towards the street. At the same moment Jack rolled up out of the gutter and found himself standing in the middle of the Y with his back to the barricade.