“Yes, dat’s flood. Come, get up a tree.”
“Oh, nonsense! Come and see.”
“No, no, Mass’ George, mustn’t go,” cried Pomp, seizing my arm, and I was making for the path leading to the stream. “Hark! Hear dat?”
I certainly did hear a low, ominous roar rising and falling in the air, but it sounded like distant thunder dying away. I began to be startled now, for the look of dread in Hannibal’s features was not without its effect upon me. Just then Pomp began to drag Sarah toward the biggest cypress about the place, chattering to her excitedly the while.
“No, no, I can’t; my good boy, no,” she cried. “What! Get up the tree? Oh, nonsense! Here, Master George, my dear boy, what does it all mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m as puzzled as you are, but it means that we’re going to have a flood. I wish my father was here.”
“Look here, Pomp,” I said; “we need not climb a tree; it’s a great chance if the water reaches as high as the garden;” and I looked round, thinking how wise my father had been to select this spot, which was the only rising bit of ground near, though he had not chosen it on account of fears of flood, but so as to be well above the swamp damp and mists.
Hannibal said something excitedly to his son.
“Yes; climb up a tree, Mass’ George. Big water come roll down, wash um all away. Ah! Make um hase, Mass’ George.” He seized me by the arm, and pushed me toward the tree, which was about a hundred feet away down the slope at the back, but almost instantaneously a wave of water came washing and sighing through the forest slowly but surely, and lapped onward as it swept out from the forest line at a rate which, deliberate as it seemed, was sufficient for it to reach the big cypress before we could; and I stopped short appalled and looked round for a place of refuge.
The water came on, and in another minute would have been up to where we stood, but it shrank back again toward the forest, and I felt that the danger was over, when to my great delight I heard a shout, the splashing of some one running through water, and my father came into sight to run up the slope to the place where we stood, closely followed by Morgan, and both at first too much exhausted to speak.