We could hear now and then ashore, even amid the howling of the wind and the crashing thunder the rending of wood as houses were unroofed, and from the terrible uproar which came later we believed the trees growing near where we lay were being torn up by the roots, as was really found to be the case when morning dawned.
The pungy rocked to and fro as if in the open bay, straining at her hawsers until it became necessary to pass extra ones, otherwise she would have been swept from her moorings.
Those of us who went on deck to do this work were wetted in an instant as if we had jumped overboard, and at times it became necessary to hold fast by the rail, otherwise we would have been literally blown into the river.
There was no possibility of getting under way that night, and all hands kept watch in the cuddy until day broke, when, and not until then, did the storm abate.
The wind had aided the Britishers in working havoc. From the deck of the pungy I saw no less than four houses, the roofs of which had been torn off, and one negro shanty was in ruins. As far as we could see the trees were uprooted, and the river ran so full of wreckage that I wondered we had not been swamped off hand.
"We'll stay here a few hours longer, I reckon," Darius said to me as he pointed toward the fragments of buildings and trees with which the river seemed literally to be choked. "If this pungy struck fair on somethin' like that yonder, she'd founder for a fact."
The veriest landsman who ever lived would have understood that it was folly to think of getting under way just then, and my heart grew heavy as lead in my breast, for I firmly believed that before another hour had passed the enemy would be out searching for the prisoners who had escaped, in which case all hands of us stood a good chance of seeing the interior of that "stone house."
As we stood on deck, regardless of the possibility that some of the enemy might come that way, a man ran down the street toward the water's edge, waving his arms about and otherwise acting as if nearly beside himself with joy or grief.
"What is the matter, friend?" Captain Hanaford cried at the full strength of his lungs, and the man made quite a lengthy reply; but all we could hear of it was this one exclamation:
"The British!"