When the cart reached the house, David and Frederick met a great number of peasants weeping bitterly, and driving before them all kinds of animals. Some were walking by the side of wagons laden with furniture piled pell-mell, kitchen utensils, mattresses, clothing, barrels, sacks of grain, all snatched in haste from the devouring waves of the overflow.
Some women carried nursing children, others had little boys and girls on their backs, while the men were trying to guide the frightened beasts.
"Does the water continue to rise, my poor people?" asked David, without stopping, and walking along by their side.
"Alas, monsieur, it is still rising; the bridge of Blémur has been carried off by the waves," said one.
"There was already four feet of water in the village when we left it," said another.
"The great floats of wood in the basin of St. Pierre have been swept into the current of the valley," said a third.
"They came down like a thunderbolt, struck two large boats manned with sailors coming to aid the people, and capsized them."
"All those brave men were drowned," said another, "for the Loire at its highest water is not half as rapid as the current of the overflow."
"And those unhappy people below!" said Frederick, impatiently. "Shall we arrive in time? My God! Oh, if the men from the castle get there before we do!"
The cart was at the farm; while they were putting provisions and coverings in the little boat, David asked André for a hedging knife, and went to select a long branch of the ash-tree, from which he cut about ten feet, light, supple, and easily handled. An iron hook, which had served as a pulley for a bucket, was solidly fastened to the end of this improvised instrument, which would answer to tow the boat from apparent obstacles, or to sustain it along the roof of the submerged house; the long well-rope was also laid in the little boat, as well as two or three light planks, solidly bound together, and capable of serving as a buoy of salvage in a desperate case.