"The river over the town! Good Heaven! And you say that as indifferently as if hundreds of human lives and millions of money were not imperilled," cried the doctor, breaking away from his companion, and running down towards the village.
A terrible, a heart-crushing sight met his eyes!
The doctor's family occupied a beautiful low-roofed villa on the opposite bank of Violet Run, a little stream of water making up from the Black River. The doctor's first thought was of his own home, of course, and he ran swiftly on, through darkness and storm, until he was suddenly brought up on the banks of the run. Here he stood aghast. The pretty rustic bridge that had spanned the run, and led to his own terraced grounds, was swept away; and the run, now swollen to the size of a raging river, roared between himself and his home.
His home!—where was it?
He strained his aching eyes through the murky gloom to look for it, and oh! horror of horrors! his terraced garden and his low-roofed villa had disappeared, and in their place what seemed a raft, with human beings on, floated about at the mercy of the flood.
With a pang of despair, he recognized it as his own house-top, with probably his wife and children clinging to it; and at the same instant the raft, or roof, was violently whirled around, and swept under by the force of the current.
With a cry of desperation, the wretched husband and father flung up his arms to leap into the boiling flood, when he was caught from behind and held fast.
"What would you do? Rush to certain destruction?" said the voice of Lyon Berners, who had just reached the spot.
"My wife! my children!" shrieked the man, dashing his hands to his head.
"Come back, or you will be swept away," said Mr. Berners, forcibly drawing him from the spot just an instant before the water rolled over it.