"The Loire—"
"Well?"
"The inundation we were speaking of yesterday at the brickmaker's—"
"An overflow,—that is frightful! What a disaster, my God, what a disaster!"
"Come, come, my friend, you can no longer see the valley at the edge of the forest; it is all a lake of water!"
David and Frederick descended precipitately, and found Madame Bastien in the library. She also had risen in haste. Marguerite and the gardener were groaning in terror.
"The water is gaining on us."
"The house will be swept away," they cried.
"And the poor farmers in the valley," said Madame Bastien, her eyes filled with tears. "Their houses, so isolated, are perhaps already submerged, and the miserable people in them, surprised in the night by the overflow, cannot get away."
"Then, madame," said David, "we must at once go to the rescue of the valley people. Here there is no danger."