Of course such a basin as this must have an outlet as well as an inlet, and it was his purpose to prevent himself being carried away into another similar canon, from which it was hardly possible to make such an escape over again.
This required severe effort, but happily it was accomplished sooner than was expected. While swimming vigorously forward, his feet touched bottom, and although scarcely able to maintain his foothold, yet by using arms and legs and grasping some branches that brushed his face, he succeeded in drawing himself out upon land, and found himself free from the flood.
“Saved at last, and thank God for it!” was his fervent ejaculation. “But what of the rest?—what of the women and children? and Lizzie—where can she be?”
All was of inky darkness about him, and he hardly dared to move for fear of plunging himself into some inextricable pitfall. Only by feeling every foot of the way as he advanced, did he manage to get away from the immediate neighborhood of the din and rush of waters.
Sinking down upon his knees, he crept along for some distance in this manner, until, as near as he could judge, he was in a sort of valley or ravine, much broader than the one in which he and his friends had been overwhelmed by the flood, and which seemed to have escaped the rush of water that had been driven through that.
Finding that it remained comparatively level, he finally rose to his feet again and advanced with more speed, but at the same time, with the caution due such a critical situation.
The wind was still blowing with a desolate, wailing sound, but the rain had ceased entirely; and the night, pitchy dark and cold, could not have been more desolate and cheerless.
“Halloa!” suddenly exclaimed the astonished Egbert, “yonder is a light as sure as the world! Who can be camping out to-night? Be he friend or foe, I must find out.”
With this resolution he started toward the star-like beacon.