“Just half a minute longer,” answered Harry; “I must lash these things up.”
Hector, however, would not stop, and rushed out of the house. Directly afterwards he came back, looking very pale.
“The water is rushing through the hollow like a mill-sluice!” he exclaimed; “we shall lose our lives if we attempt to cross.”
Harry and Reggy followed him out. He spoke too truly. They were cut off from what was now the mainland by a foaming torrent twelve yards or more in width, which was carrying along fruit-trees, rocks, and palings, whirling them round and round so that it would be impossible to swim across or to wade, even should the depth allow of their doing so. Hector threw down his load and wrung his hands.
“Stay!” cried Harry, “we’ve got a ladder! we may get across by that.”
They all three ran back for it, and attempted to throw it across, but the channel was too wide, and it was almost torn from their grasp. It would have been lost had not Harry fastened a rope to the lower round, by which it was hauled in.
“The ladder may be useful for another purpose,” observed Harry.
They lifted it up and carried it back to the house. The water was by this time rising even faster than before. The maize field, the yam and potato-ground, the orchard and kitchen-garden, were all flooded. Palings and hedges were everywhere giving way before the torrent. A rise of another foot would bring it up to the walls of the house. The floor was somewhat higher, so that it would not damage that much should the flood cease to rise when it got thus far. But would it cease? was the question. If it once began to beat against the walls of the house, would they stand? Reggy proposed climbing up to the roof by means of the ladder.
“That would be a place of very doubtful safety,” said Harry.
They looked up the stream, now extending a quarter of a mile or more on either side of its original bed. The whole country around them seemed flooded, with the exception of the hill to which the drays had gone.