Blake rushed toward the lower cabin.
"Where are you going?" cried Joe.
"To get the cameras," replied his chum, not pausing. "This is a chance we mustn't miss."
"But we must escape! We must look to ourselves!" shouted Mr. Alcando. "This is not time for making moving pictures."
"We've got to make it this time!" Joe said, falling in with Blake. "You'll find you've got to make moving pictures when you can, not when you want to!"
To do justice to Mr. Alcando he was not a coward, but this was very unusual for him, to make pictures in the face of a great danger—to stand calmly with a camera, turning the crank and getting view after view on the strip of celluloid film, while a flood of water rushed down on you. It was something he never dreamed of.
But he was not a "quitter," which word, though objectionable as slang, is most satisfactorily descriptive.
"I'll help!" the young Spaniard cried, as he followed Blake and Joe down to where the cameras and films were kept.
On came the rush of water, released by the accidental opening of the upper lock gates before the lower ones were closed. The waters of Gatun Lake were rushing to regain the freedom denied them by the building of the locks.
But they were not to have their own way for long. Even this emergency, great as it was, unlikely as it was to happen, had been foreseen by those who built the Canal.