“Oh, gracious, are we going down?”
“I don’t know. As I said before, I think it very likely.”
“We’ll be food for fishes this time to-morrow! Oh-h-h-h-h-h!”
The River Swallow gave a giddy, sidewise plunge. At the same moment a flash of lightning illumined the tossing water. It was Ralph’s turn to give a gasp of dismay. The flash had revealed, down the river, a big, black object that he knew must be an island.
The wind and the current were carrying them down stream.
“Wow!” exclaimed Ralph to himself. “There may be more truth than poetry in Hawke’s fears. If we ever hit——”
He did not dare to complete the sentence even to himself. The thought was too horrible. In his mind’s eye he could see, as clearly as in a nightmare, the breaking up of the River Swallow on the rocky shore of an island.
“You-you asked me if there was anything I wanted to save?”
It was La Rue’s scared, trembling voice again.
“Yes; get what you can, Hawke. But don’t let it be anything bulky. If you don’t want to be dragged down, take only your most valuable possessions.”