Tom and his party were already there, for the rising water had soon warned their assailants of the danger, and the fire had suddenly ceased. Already the greater part of the valley was covered with water, down the centre of which a foaming torrent was flowing. Here and there could be seen numerous dark objects, which, he knew, were the bodies of the Indians who had defended the upper defile, caught before they could reach its mouth by the wall of water from above. They had instantly been dashed lifeless against the rocks and boulders, and not one could be seen to make towards the comparatively still waters on either side of the centre stream.
Driven back again by the narrow entrance to the lower defile the water in the valley rose rapidly, as with an ever-increasing violence it poured in from above. There it was rushing out in a solid, dark-brown cataract, which Dick judged to be fully forty feet in height. In a quarter of an hour from its first outburst the water had already reached the feet of those standing upon the little knoll of ground in the valley. The oxen lowing and stamping with terror pressed more and more closely together. The young ostriches were placed in one of the waggons, for although their height would have left their heads well above water, they would probably have succumbed to the effects of a prolonged submersion of their bodies.
“If it goes on like this for another quarter of an hour,” Mr Harvey said, “the oxen will be washed away, if not the waggons. Thank God, I think we can all manage to climb up the slope. Jumbo, tell the men each to load themselves with five or six days’ provisions. Let half a dozen take boxes of ammunition, and as many bales of the best cloth. Let the rest take as many bundles of the best ostrich feathers as they can carry. Let them lay them all on the slope, twenty or thirty yards up, wherever they can find place for them, and then come down again, and make as many trips with the best goods as they can.”
All hands worked hard; inch by inch the water rose; Mr Harvey, assisted by the boys and teamsters, fastened ropes together, and with these surrounded the closely-packed throng of cattle. The water was now more than waist-deep, and was still rising; soon the cattle on the outside were lifted off their feet. There was no current here, and they floated with their heads on the backs of those in front of them; higher and higher the water rose, till the whole of the cattle were afloat. At first a few struggled, but soon they subsided into quiet, and the whole mass floated together, with only their heads above water.
On every available ledge on the hillside were placed bundles and bales of all kinds, and here the whites and natives stood, watching the progress of the flood. The thunder-shower had ceased soon after the water first burst through the gorge, but Mr Harvey knew that some hours must elapse before the flood would begin to abate.
“I don’t see why the water should not run off as fast as it comes in,” Dick said.
“It all depends, Dick, upon the question whether in the lower defile there is any place narrower than the mouth, through which the water is rushing from above. According to appearances this is so; for, could the water escape faster than it comes in, the lake here would cease to rise. I think now the water has reached a level, where the outflow nearly equals the inflow. I have been watching the wheels of the waggons, and for the last ten minutes I do not think it has risen above an inch or two.”
“I will get down and watch,” Dick said, and he scrambled down to the water’s edge.
Two minutes later he shouted up,—
“It has not risen at all since I came here!” The teamsters had taken their station on the outside waggons, and continued to talk and shout to the oxen, exhorting these to be patient and quiet, as if the animals were capable of understanding every word they said.