While Frederick was speaking, he had turned to a table near by, and was writing a few words rapidly. He handed the sheet of paper to Gavin. On it was scrawled in the King’s peculiar handwriting: “On the night of the first of March, 1758, Lieutenant Gavin Hamilton brought me on his back through my flooded garden at Breslau, with the water four feet deep. Midway he stopped and we conversed. The name of the Empress Queen being mentioned, Lieutenant Hamilton told me if I should speak disrespectfully of her Majesty he would drop me in the water if he were shot next morning for it. I had no thought of speaking disrespectfully of her Majesty, but if I had done so, I have no doubt Lieutenant Hamilton would have instantly carried out his threat. Frédéric.”
Gavin’s mouth came open in a tremendous grin as he read this, the more so when Frederick good-humouredly added:
“That ought to be good for one step in promotion at least.”
CHAPTER IX
All through the night the storm raged. The air grew warm and murky, and thunder and lightning roared and flashed. The river, swollen by other streams, overflowed its banks, and flooded all of the old part of the town where the King’s headquarters were. St. Arnaud had been brought from the observatory in a boat, and had got drenched to the bone in the process. There was no possibility at that hour, between two and three in the morning, of St. Arnaud and Gavin getting back to their own quarters. Supplied with dry clothes by the officers of the King’s military family, and given a room with a bed and a sofa in it, they threw themselves down, still dressed, to sleep. Gavin, with the readiness of a child to go to sleep, dropped into a deep slumber within two minutes. St. Arnaud, much fatigued, yet found himself kept awake by the commotion of the storm. Great peals of deafening thunder shook the house; the wind, blowing frightfully hard, rattled the windows until it sounded like a continuous discharge of musketry. The surging of the waters could be heard only at intervals, while torrents of rain descended. St. Arnaud, weary, but quite unable to sleep, rose, and went to the window. The blackness of darkness encompassed everything except for the lightning flashes, which zigzagged across the inky sky, showing the whole dreadful scene. The streets were altogether submerged, and both sentry boxes had floated away. Trees were twisted off and sent scurrying along the raging waters; some bodies of drowned animals floated by.
In the gleam of the lightning St. Arnaud saw that all the houses in the neighbourhood were lighted up and the people astir. In the house in which he was no one slept except Gavin. St. Arnaud heard officers moving about, prepared, in case of a catastrophe, which was far from improbable.
As the wild sky turned from black to a pallid gray, without any abatement of the storm, St. Arnaud saw all the destruction it had wrought. Opposite him was a house with far-projecting eaves. The wind, which had lulled somewhat, suddenly rose to a gust, and the roof went skyward with a crash of breaking timbers. A cry from invisible sources rent the air, as, at a window, in the roofless house, appeared a man, half dressed. The house shook and tottered, the walls seeming about to fall in. The man, a young fellow, evidently a workman, coolly prepared to spring into the water. He leaped none too soon. The walls, weakened by the floods and the tearing away of the roof, cracked inward as he struck the water. He was evidently no swimmer, but with great self-possession floated flat on his back. A dozen persons appeared at the neighbouring windows, ready to assist him; but, carried by the flood, he was floating straight for a little balcony on which the window of St. Arnaud’s room opened. St. Arnaud stepped out promptly, to catch him as he passed; but to his surprise looked up, and Gavin was beside him.
“That infernal racket waked me at last,” he said.
Both of them sat astride the balustrade in order to catch the man still floating straight toward them. He reached Gavin first, who, leaning forward, with his long, muscular arms outstretched, caught him firmly, and proceeded to drag him on to the balcony by main force. In some way, however, Gavin lost his balance, and if St. Arnaud had not come to the rescue would have gone over himself. As it was, he could do little toward helping St. Arnaud to drag the workman on to the balcony; and as soon as it was accomplished he limped inside the open window. Half a dozen officers, among them the King’s surgeon, were then in the room to assist the workman, who had suffered nothing worse than a wetting, and to ask if there were any persons in the house when it collapsed. There were none, and a servant was directed to take the man below and give him some dry clothes. While this was going on no one noticed Gavin, who sat on a chair, nursing his leg. When they turned to him, however, he was slipping off his chair, and the next instant he lay in a heap on the floor, in a dead faint.
The King’s surgeon was down on his knees in a moment, trying to bring Gavin to, while his clothes were unloosed by St. Arnaud. In a few minutes he recovered, only to groan with pain. His leg was badly wrenched, and when the surgeon examined it, he horrified both Gavin and St. Arnaud by saying: