They ate a little of their remaining provisions and then spread the blankets on the low, damp ground.
Sam Willett had a military idea of the value of discipline. Having begun with having guards at night, he determined to keep it up till the end.
The wisdom of this precaution was shown before another sun came to banish the shadows.
About an hour before daylight Ulna, who was then watching, discovered that the flood was rising around them, and hastily awoke his companions.
They sprang up to find the water roaring about them, and Sam, holding the raft to keep it from floating off, ordered the others to bundle up the blankets and get all the things on board.
As soon as this was done they pushed the raft into deeper water, got on board and were at once swept away by the current.
Such trials would have crushed the spirits of any but the bravest, and with a less resolute leader than Sam, despair would have made the others indifferent to their surroundings.
While it was yet as dark as midnight in the cañon, they could look up and see pink streaks in the far-off sky that told them the light of another day was again flushing the upper world.
But the sun only looked into this gloomy abyss for one short hour in the twenty-four, and then left it to the gathering shadows and impenetrable night.
It was ten o'clock by Sam's watch when they found a ledge of rocks on which they could make a landing.