“Thank God!” he cried at last. “Don’t speak. Flood. The settlement deep in water. Rising fast. The boat?”
“Wash away, massa,” cried Pomp.
“Ah!” cried my father, despairingly. “Quick, all of you. It is coming now.”
As he spoke I heard the deep roar increasing, and after a glance round, my father pointed to the tree.
“We must get up into that. No: too late.”
For the flood came in a great, smooth, swelling wave out from the edge of the forest, and then glided toward us, rising rapidly up the slope.
“I’m with you,” cried my father, and catching Sarah by the hand, he dragged her into the house, seized the rough ladder, and made her climb up silent and trembling into the loft, where, before we could join her, the water was over the doorsteps and had risen to our knees.
But the moment Sarah was in the loft, my father ordered Pomp and me to follow, then Hannibal and Morgan, coming up last himself, by which time the water was up to his waist.
As soon as he was in the little low loft, my father forced out the wooden bars across one of the windows and looked out, to take in the extent of our danger, and I pressed close to his side.
“Is there any danger?” I said, rather huskily.