The current bore him on and on and great waves continued to roll in from the sea. The wind was blowing as violently as any wind Roy had encountered in all the days of storm through which he had passed. But within the landlocked bay the waves were pigmies compared to the giant rollers in the Gulf. Furthermore, the inrushing tidal wave seemed to beat down and flatten all opposing waves. Roy felt sure that he would now reach the shore in safety.
Presently his strength came back to him. He sat up and looked about him. Already the inrushing tide had carried him far up the bay. He judged that this might be eight or ten miles wide. How long it was he could not guess, though he was certain that its length must be at least double its width. Far to the west he could dimly see there was a city. There were high bluffs there and he felt sure that he saw buildings. But the blinding spray made his vision uncertain.
Wreckage floated on all sides of him. Telephone-poles, uprooted trees, fence-posts, logs, planks, roofs, doorsteps, porches, parts of buildings, and a thousand other floating objects filled the bay. The farther Roy traveled, the more numerous became these floating objects. Soon Roy began to fear that he might be pounded to death by the wreckage. It began to collect about his boat and to beat against it. Suddenly a great log was catapulted, end on, straight at the Waldo. With a crash that was audible above the storm it stove in one entire side of the launch and the Waldo disappeared amid the swirling wreckage. But Roy had foreseen what would happen. Scrambling to his feet, he leaped far to one side as the boat sank, and swimming under water came up clear of the wreckage. A large tree was floating near by, riding majestically through the waves. Roy swam to it, and, grasping some roots, pulled himself up on the trunk. To his horror he found a rattlesnake coiled up on the tree. For a moment Roy was on the point of jumping back into the water. But the reptile showed no disposition to molest him, and Roy stuck to the log. He kept one eye on the snake and watched closely for a new support.
The current drove him on and on, though all the while it shunted him toward the south shore. Now he could plainly see the city. It was apparent the waves were carrying him straight for it. As he drew near he saw that the water had already spread far up in the town. Waves were surging about all the houses in the lower part of the city. From these houses persons were wading toward the higher ground far inland. It was an awful sight. Block after block of dwellings stood in the flood, and Roy could see that every minute the waters were rising higher. Everywhere little groups of refugees were struggling through the swirling waves, slipping, stumbling, clinging desperately to one another as they raced with death through the rising waters. With incredible swiftness the flood deepened around the doomed dwellings.
People appeared at second-story windows. Terrified men, women, and children who had lingered too long, leaned from these windows with blanched faces, looking for means of rescue. The floating wreckage, now blown together in solid masses, drove into the city and began to batter the inundated dwellings. Roy shuddered. He knew what it meant.
Even as he looked a dwelling collapsed, spreading apart like a house of cards and falling into the flood. “Great God!” cried Roy, shuddering with horror. There had been faces at the second-story window. Another house went down. A third split in half, like a beef riven along the chine, and the two halves leaned away from each other and toppled over into the flood. By the height of the water on the buildings Roy judged that the waves must be ten feet deep. House after house went down. As each collapsed, the wreckage added volume to the mass of floating débris that was battering the city to pieces. Now dwellings went down by tens, now by scores. They disappeared faster than Roy could count. The noise of the tempest and the battering of house against house was indescribable.
Everywhere men, women, and children were leaping from their homes into the flood. Some disappeared forever. Some were able to crawl up on floating timbers. Some were crushed beyond recognition. As the houses fell apart, the terrible wind picked up boards and planks and hurled them hither and thither. The air was filled with flying timbers. A great board came sailing directly toward Roy. It would have killed him had it touched him. He fell flat on the tree trunk and the board whizzed over his shoulder.
But the movement brought Roy within a few inches of the snake. Terrified, he leaped to his feet again and began to look for another refuge. The side of a house floated by. It was within twenty feet. Gathering himself for the effort, Roy leaped on a large timber, then to a telegraph-pole, and from that to the side of the house. He reached it safely. It was still firm and it rode high out of water. Evidently there were big timbers beneath it, buoying it up. Roy found that he could walk around on it safely.
The sight of so many persons distressed and dying was sickening. Roy’s heart cried out to rescue them but he was helpless. His raft was wedged in a mass of débris acres in extent, that grew as every collapsing house was added to it, that became every moment more compact, and that was flung forward by the irresistible current, mowing down houses as a scythe topples over grain. He dared not try to cross the floating mass. Inevitably he would have sunk through it. Once beneath the mass death would have been certain. All he could do was to stick to his raft and wait for the moment for escape.
On and on drove the mass. Where a few minutes previously houses had stood by hundreds, there were now only acres and acres of tossing débris. On every side Roy saw refugees, riding like himself on the wreckage or clinging to floating logs or planks.