“Thanks, your honor, but I have good stout arms.”
“Robert, how is your horse going?” asked his Lordship, turning to young Grant.
“Famously, my Lord, he swims like a fish.”
“Lookout!” shouted the Major, in a stentorian voice.
The warning was scarcely spoken before the enormous billow, a monstrous wave forty feet high, broke over the fugitives with a fearful noise. Men and animals all disappeared in a whirl of foam; a liquid mass, weighing several millions of tons, engulfed them in its seething waters.
When it had rolled on, the men reappeared on the surface, and counted each other rapidly; but all the horses, except Thaouka, who still bore his master, had gone down forever.
“Courage, courage,” repeated Glenarvan, supporting Paganel with one arm, and swimming with the other.
“I can manage, I can manage,” said the worthy savant. “I am even not sorry—”
But no one ever knew what he was not sorry about, for the poor man was obliged to swallow down the rest of his sentence with half a pint of muddy water. The Major advanced quietly, making regular strokes, worthy of a master swimmer. The sailors took to the water like porpoises, while Robert clung to Thaouka’s mane, and was carried along with him. The noble animal swam superbly, instinctively making for the tree in a straight line.
The tree was only twenty fathoms off, and in a few minutes was safely reached by the whole party; but for this refuge they must all have perished in the flood.