His fellow turned and stared. “Lak er swell from er steamer, only there ain’t any steamer on the Mississippi these days—”
“O my Lawd, what dat sound?”
The boat rocked violently. “Oh, Destruction, not there!” cried Edward Cary.
Cape Jessamine went down, down. They saw and heard; it was before their eyes; the bending pillars, the crashing walls, the trees that fell, the earth that vanished, the churned and horrible water.... They saw the work of the river, the sapper who worked with a million hands.... Shrieking, the negroes drove the boat head into the muddy shore, leaped up and caught at the overhanging boughs. Their frail craft was stayed, resting behind a breakwater of dead limbs. “O God-er-moughty! O God-er-moughty!” wailed the young negro.
Edward stood like marble. It had been there celestially fair—his port and haven and the wealth it held. It was gone—gone like a mirage. The red sun sank and left the wild world a wide waste.... The darkness, which, in this latitude, followed at once, was unwelcome only because it closed the door on search, hopeless and impossible as would search have been in that cauldron of earth and water. The inner darkness was heavier than that which came up from the east. Through it all the long night throbbed like a dark star, now despair, now hope against hope.
They fastened the boat with a rope to a great projecting piece of Spanish bayonet. For a while, despite the sheltered spot into which they had driven, it rose and fell as though it were at sea, but this passed with the passing hours. At last the excited negroes fell quiet, at last they lay asleep, head pillowed on arms. As best he might Cary wore out the darkness.
It was not yet dawn when he roused the negroes. The boat lay quiet now; the river was over its disturbance of the evening before. Since its origin deep in past ages the river had pulled down too many shores, swallowed too many strips of land to be long concerned over its latest work. Yellow and deep and terrible, on it ran, remorseless and unremembering. The boat on the edge of the swamp, in the circle of projecting root and snag, lay quiet. Above and around it hung lifeless from the boughs the grey moss. Bough and moss, there was made a vast tracery through which showed the primrose sky, cold, quiet, infinitely withdrawn. Looking down the stream, all that was missed was Cape Jessamine. The yellow water rolled over that.
“There was a bayou a mile or two back,” said Edward. “The one on which stood ’Rasmus’s house. It ran north and south and the road went across it. Can we get to that bayou?”
“Yes, sah. Hit’s haid ain’ far from here. But we’d have to leave de boat.”
“It is fastened and hidden. You will find it again.”