"And oh, good Lord in heaven, what an awful night! I never did see sich a night in my life, with the rain pouring and pouring barrels full in a stream, and the river roaring around the house like a whole drove of lions!" she exclaimed, shuddering from head to foot.
"And an endless night as it is, oh, my goodness! But it must be near morning; I do think it must be near morning," she finally said, as she arose and laid the baby on the bed beside its mother, and then went to the window to look out for the dawn.
She started back with a cry of terror, and sank upon the nearest seat.
The cell, as I told you, was in the angle of the building, and had two windows—the one looking down upon Black River, and the other upon Bird Creek. Miss Tabby had peeped from that one which overlooked Bird Creek.
Day had dawned darkly and dimly, but the solitary woman saw enough to curdle her blood with horror.
The river and the creek, lashed to fury, had swollen so high that they were now merged into one body of water, and had risen nearly to the second story of the building. If Miss Tabby could have put her arm through the grated window, she might easily have reached down and dipped her hand in the rising water, for it was rising so fast that she could almost see it mount.
"Oh, my good gracious alive!" she cried, as she fell back on the chair—"it's a flood! It's a flood like that I heard mother talk about, which carried away the mills in ninety. It's a flood! it's a flood! And we shall all be drownded in this horrid cell, like blind kittens in a tub!"
And made desperate by terror, the old woman started up, and rushed to the barred and bolted door of the cell, and rapped and kicked with all her might, and threw herself against it, and called, loudly and frantically:
"Help! Murder! Murder! Help! Take us out, or we'll all be drownded in ten minutes!"
But bolts and bars resisted all her strength, and the noise of winds and waters drowned her voice. And the same cause that rendered others deaf to her frenzied cries for help, prevented her from hearing the sounds of terror and confusion that came up from the story below—the groaning and crying of men locked up in their cells; the calling and shouting of warden and watchmen, rushing from corridor to corridor to release the prisoners from their imminent peril; the clattering of feet, the mingling of voices; in short, all the discordant notes that go to make up the infernal concert of a crowd surprised and maddened by sudden and general disaster.