‘What is the matter?’ she gasped as I entered.
‘The sea has overflowed the cantonment,’ I replied hastily, as I quickly lifted her in my arms; ‘but trust to me, Lionne, and I will take you to a place of safety.’
She shuddered but made no resistance, until I had carried her to the dining-room, now half full of water, and was preparing to wade with her through the verandah, and place her on the roof of the house.
‘But where is Janie?’ she exclaimed, as she looked with horror on the advancing mass of water; ‘oh, where is Janie?’
At her question I nearly dropped my burden; for the moment I had entirely forgotten my poor wife, whose screams were patent from the adjoining room.
‘Go to her,’ said Lionne, as she struggled from my embrace, and slid down into the cold waves, against the violence of which she could hardly support herself. ‘Go at once! What were you thinking of? She will drown, if you do not take care.’
‘I am doing as much as I can,’ I answered hurriedly. ‘Let me place you in safety first, and then I will return for her. I cannot carry two at once.’
‘And you would leave her to the last?’ she said indignantly; ‘she, in whom two lives are wrapt in one! Oh, Robert! I did not think it of you.’
‘But, my beloved—’ I commenced, in an agony at her delay.
‘Go!’ she said authoritatively; and I left her to her fate, and went.