By the light of the electric the boy saw that the river was indeed rising. Little knolls which were above water when the boat had been anchored were now under a swift current. The river was sweeping past the mouth of the lagoon with a new force.
Presently trees and wreckage of different sorts were seen drifting down, and there came a rushing sound which added greatly to the weirdness of the scene.
“This beats me!” Jule muttered. “The flood has been going down for nearly a week. There must have been heavy rains up to the north, and at the sources of the rivers emptying into the Mississippi. I wonder if it will do anything to us?”
At that moment a timber crashed against the Rambler, jarring it considerably.
Clay and the others were out of their bunks in a minute, and out on deck to see what had taken place. Alex. was the first one to grasp the situation.
“We’ll have to turn on the motors to hold this boat,” he said. “The anchor lies in the mud, and will pull away at the first push of a current. First thing we know, we’ll be down there in a cypress swamp!”
“You’re excited!” Case called out. “We passed the flood two days ago.”
“That’s the trouble,” Alex. explained. “We passed the flood! The crest of it is still to the north of us. It has undoubtedly been raining up river, and that has swelled the volume of water.”
“Do you mean that we got down the river in advance of the flood?” demanded Case.
“We have been going a little faster than the current, haven’t we, notwithstanding our tying up nights?” Alex. asked. “This little boat has been going some! To-night the crest of the flood overtakes us. See?”