“It is only the wind in the pine-tops sighing as if all the sad spirits of the air were there in debate,” said Brace. “I like staying here, father; for it is as if one was once more at sea, with the heralds of the coming storm whispering through the rigging, and telling the news of the fierce winds, soon to shake spar and cord. Father,” he said dreamily, “I ought not to have stayed at Merland so long.”
“There is something going on out there!” cried the Captain, who had not heeded his son’s words. “Come, Brace—once more be a man, and let us go and see.”
The young man started up, and together they hurried to where the navvies had been at work, to find that, half-drunken, they had neglected to see to the security of a dam, beneath which they were working, and it had burst, sweeping all before it, tearing down and scooping out the sides of the drain; and Brace and his father arrived in time to save the lives of two of the men, whom the water had swept some distance down.
But no lives were lost, and soon, the water having passed, the men collected where they had been at work, one angrily blaming the other as being the cause of the mischief.
“Are you all here?” exclaimed Captain Norton in his sharp, short, military way. “Count up!”
“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Where’s Joe Marks?” cried the ganger, counting.
“Here, all right!” growled a wet savage, who was vainly trying to ignite his pipe with some sodden matches.
“Where’s Sol Dancer?” cried the ganger, after another spell at counting.
“Oh! he’s over there,” said another with a grin. “You couldn’t drownd he, if you was to try.”
“We’re all right, sir!” said the ganger. “We was going to work another hour, as they lost a lot o’ time this morning; but it’s all over now for to-night. Nice job to get straight again in the mornin’. But, hallo! what’s that?”