There was another tremendous cheer at this, and then Dellow threw a wet blanket over all.
“I dunno,” he said slowly: “I don’t think it will be to-morrow, for there’s some weather about. Look at that lightning playing away to the west’ard.”
The first mate was right, for that night there was a frightful storm to announce the breaking-up of the season.
The next day the river was in flood, and in spite of all the captain’s skill the brig was torn from her moorings and borne rapidly down stream.
The days passed, and the weather grew worse and worse. Efforts were made to moor or anchor over and over again, but the river rapidly became like one vast lake with the water extending for miles on either side.
After terrible vicissitudes the captain at last breathed freely when at the end of some weeks the “Jason” was rising and falling in half a gale well out to sea.
“Hah!” he said; “this is something like. I can turn in now for a rest without expecting to be capsized by being swept over a clump of trees. There’s nothing like the sea, after all.”
“But what about going up the river again?” asked Briscoe.
“It will be in flood for months to come, sir, I should say, and my advice would be for us to get safe home with what we’ve got, and make another trip next year.”
The captain’s advice was taken, and to a man the men volunteered to go again the next season.