They all heard it—a rushing, roaring sound, like the blowing of a mighty wind.
"The water—the water!" cried Bud. "Look out!"
They could hear the noise more plainly, now, and as Snake and Billee raised their lanterns, the glows flashed on a white, frothy mass approaching through the blackness of the tunnel.
"It's the same as before!" cried Nort. "Get to the ledge! The ledge!"
He made a leap, running ahead to where he saw a more narrow place that would enable him to leap across from the right to the left side of the channel.
And then, while the others hung back for a moment, and Nort thus dashed ahead alone, his companions saw him quickly disappear. The wall of water suddenly rushed forward, but it never came quite to the place where the party of five now stood in nameless terror—five, for Nort had disappeared into the depths of the stream that had so mysteriously appeared again out of the blackness.
From whence it came, and whither it was rushing, not to foam entirely over that startled group, none in it could say. But it had engulfed Nort—that they had seen.