And so the night wore on, with the flood gliding up and up, and strange splashings and bellowings heard from time to time, now far off, now nearer, and every eye was strained to see if the creatures that made these noises were appearing.
Then all was silent again, and we waited, with the water still rising.
All at once I caught at my father’s arm.
“What’s that?” I whispered, in awe-stricken tones, for there was a curious quivering thrill in the timbers of the house, and it felt to me as if it was at last yielding to the presence of the water, and preparing to break up and float away.
My father did not answer for a few moments, and I knew that he was listening intently.
“I am not sure,” he said at last. “I think—and hope—that it was something heavy swept against the house, and that it has passed on.”
The alarm died out, and we sat either in silence or talking together of the state of affairs at the settlement, and the possibility of help coming in the shape of boats at daybreak, when Pomp’s sharp voice suddenly rang out—
“Hi! Who did dat? Who pour cole water on nigger leg?”
In spite of the cold and misery and peril of my position, I could not help laughing heartily as I heard Hannibal speaking angrily.
Pomp retorted just as sharply, but though his father spoke in their West African tongue the boy replied in his broken English, to which he was daily becoming more accustomed, while his father acquired it far more slowly.