The expected danger had seemed to be close at hand, but it had been far more distant than the party had supposed, for the roar went on steadily increasing, but with no other suggestion of peril save the noise, though that was enough to make the stoutest-hearted there quail.
It seemed an age, but was certainly less than an hour, before the dull heavy roar began to be mingled with a strange crashing and breaking sound which puzzled all, till the coxswain, who was standing up in the bows, boat-hook in hand, announced that it was the breaking of trees and crashing together of their branches as they were being torn up by the roots.
“Impossible!” said the doctor impatiently.
“Nay, sir, it aren’t,” said the man. “I don’t mean the big trees, but the little ’uns along the banks; and it’s getting close here, sir. It’s a big flood, that’s what it is, coming down from the mountains, for there must be some inland. There! Look yonder. Can’t you see the trees beginning to wave? It’s just as if a lake had broke loose and was coming sweeping over the country. You, Harry Briggs, hold fast to that tiller. You others, look at your work, and pull. Turn your heads, you lubbers! I’ll do all the looking out. And when I say row, every mother’s son of you pull for his life.”
Joe Cross’s words were beginning to sound indistinct before he had finished, half-smothered as they were by the increasing roar, as from far down the river a dark line of something could be seen rising some six or eight feet like a huge bank extending right across the river and apparently into the forest on both sides.
For as far as eye could reach the trees seemed to be in a strange state of agitation, the lower branches bending towards the party in the boat, as if beneath the blast of a tremendous gale.
“Sit fast, boys, every one!” yelled Joe; but he stood upright himself, and the next minute with a wild rush a great bank of water was upon them, seeming to come with a leap and dash, to plunge beneath the boat’s bows as if to toss her on high and roll her over and over in the flood. But as it struck them the trained men sat for a moment or two, till in little more than a whisper above the roar of water, Joe Cross’s voice was heard to give the order “Pull,” when seven balanced oars dipped together, and the bows began to sink.
The men got well hold of the water, and after three or four rapid tugs the boat sat level once more upon the surface of the flood, obeyed her helm, and though being carried rapidly along stern on, she shipped very little water, and in a very few minutes the greater peril was passed.
The crashing roar and rush of the water was almost deafening, but Joe retained his upright position and signalled with one hand to the steersman, while he followed suit to the rowers, who kept up a steady pull against the furious stream, with the result that now the boat sped on stern foremost at the same rate as the flood.
But the frail craft was exposed to endless risks as the water rushed along between the two great walls of verdure which marked out the devious winding course of the river. Time after time they were within an ace of being swept amidst the boughs of some towering tree; at others they were brushing over the tops of the shrub-like growth; and yet amidst the many dangers the crew never flinched, but kept on for hour after hour, head to stream, with the boat always being borne onward along straight reaches and round winding curves which looped and almost doubled back, till at last the violence of the flood grew less, leaving them more and more behind, till the greatest danger was over and the speed at which they glided was reduced to nearly half that of the first rush of the flood.