“This sort of work is all very well in fine weather, but I have no fancy to be exposed to drenching rain and howling wind,” he said to himself. “I must get back, at all events, to the higher ground.”
He had got so far from it, that this was no easy matter. Before he had walked for many minutes, down came the rain like a sheet of water, driven against him by the fierce wind.
He had now good reason to be seriously alarmed. The water in the pools, before scarcely up to his ankles, now reached almost to his knees. “Can the dykes have been burst through?” he thought. “If so, my fate is sealed—not only mine, but that of numbers of the inhabitants of the surrounding
district.” From the rapid way in which the surface of the Meer rose he felt convinced that this must be the case. Still the love of life compelled him to try and save himself, and he did not despair; although, as far as he could see, no means of making his escape were likely to present themselves.
Chapter Sixteen.
As he was hurrying on along the shore, he saw what looked to him like a wheelbarrow, with a heap of gourds or inflated skins, or some other roundish objects, though he could scarcely at the distance distinguish what they were. He reached the spot. “Come, at all events, if the waters rise, as I fear they will, these things will enable me to construct a raft on which I may manage to float on the troubled waters,” he said to himself.
Lashing them together, he took his seat on the top of this curiously constructed raft. Scarcely had he done so, when the waters came rushing over the island, and carried him and his raft far away as they swept onward in their course. On and on he went, his very natural fear being that he should be carried into the Zuyder Zee; he soon, however, came in sight of land raised above the waters, on which he could distinguish cottages and other buildings.