The rain was pouring down as if all "the gates of heaven" had been opened for another deluge.
The river and the creek lashed to fury, were roaring and rushing onward, like devouring monsters.
"Merciful Heaven! Talk of the fury of fire, but look here!" exclaimed the doctor, glancing around. But his voice was lost in the sound of many waters.
Their road, after passing the outer gates of the prison, lay away from the banks of the creek, and down the course of the river, towards the village.
But for the darkness of that stormy dawn they might have seen a fearful sight below. The lower portion of the town was already overflowed, and the waters were still rising. Many of the people were gathered upon the house-tops, and others were out in boats, engaged in rescuing their neighbors from the flooded dwellings.
But for the horrible roaring of the torrents, they might have heard the shouts and cries of the terrified inhabitants shocked and half-frenzied by the suddenness of this overwhelming calamity.
But they heard and saw but little of this as they plunged on through the darkness, in the deluge of rain and thunder of waters. Unawares they were drawing near their fate. They came upon it gradually.
"Good Heaven! what is the matter down there?" suddenly cried the doctor, as he dimly discerned the forms of men, women, and children gathered upon the house-tops, which did not look like house-tops, but like flat-boats floating upon the dark waters.
"I say, Berners, what the deuce is the matter down there? Your eyes are younger than mine—look," anxiously insisted the doctor, peering down into the gloomy and horrible chaos.
"It is a flood. The river is over the town," replied Mr. Berners, carelessly; for he, in his grief, would not have minded if the whole of the Black Valley had been turned into a black sea.