and cane-brakes, out into the open, where saw-grass and lilypads bordered the track, the children sped like hunted things. They were breathless and spent but they dared not stop. The moonlight was gone, the starlight might follow, and darkness descend upon the world before they could get through the big gate and across the cotton-field.

What was that moving among the cotton, like a jack-o'lantern leaping, flickering and dancing? What sound was it booming like a bell, full, sonorous. Heaven defend them!

What monster was this bounding towards them? Cut off front and rear, desperate and demoralized, the terrified children fell in a heap and huddled together, while old Neptune bounded nearer and nearer, his trailing note changing into a quick bark of exultation.

Mammy Mystic, Millie, and black Stephen, the latter's husband, hurried up and bent over the children with wonderment, questions, and keen words of rebuke. What were they doing out of their beds at that hour of the night? And where had they been?

"We wanted to see the Voudou," sobbed Eugénie, clinging to Mammy Mystic. "We went in the swamp like Tom Thurrow and a haunt chased us out."

The child, wild with terror and excitement, trembled like a leaf, and Mammy Mystic lifted her in her arms, soothing her with soft Creole mother-words. She had come home from Toinette's earlier than she had expected and discovered the absence of the children. After searching the house for them she had run straight to her daughter's cabin, leaving Mrs. Philip all unnerved and hysterical, to rouse up Millie and Steve for the search. Old Neptune was a blood-hound of the old breed, and a rare trailer, so they had taken him along.

Mrs. Philip was exceedingly annoyed and, when the judge returned the following day, complained of Eugénie in unmeasured terms. If the child were allowed to run wild without rebuke there was no telling what mischief and danger she might get into. The judge himself was troubled, and laid upon Eugénie, and also upon the servants, strict orders that there should be no more such adventures. When questioned as to her motive for embarking on such an expedition, Eugénie curled her arms around her father's neck and coaxed and

4

evaded. All her instincts were secretive, so she held back the true reason and declared instead that she had gone for a frolic and to frighten Chance.

THE FLOOD

From 'Oblivion.' Copyright, Henry Holt and Company, and used here by permission of the publishers.

"LIKE a thief in the night." The simile is hackneyed, but it will serve, for so the water came. The overplus of spring, rivulet, and brook, with the accumulated wash of the mountain-sides, had swelled the river to a mighty torrent which poured itself through the valley in a perfect flood. From hillside to hillside the water went with a current in the middle like a mill-race. The rail-road bridge was still standing, but the water had swept around both ends, isolating it like a scrap of wire fence in the middle of a prairie. Against it, on the upper side, a huge hammock had formed, and it was only a question of moments, and a few more logs and trees, ere the whole structure must give way; so impotent is iron, and cunning handiwork, against the power of such agents of destruction as weight and water.

All the villagers, men, women, children, and dogs, were abroad upon the hillside, wondering, gazing, commenting, and questioning. The railway-track was seven feet under water, and the river was still rising.

"Thar goes Rideout's sto'," remarked Knapp, the carpenter, "startin' out down country on er v'yage o' diskivery. Look how well she holds together; every log an' plank in place as solid as the day I j'ined 'em." The speaker paused to regard his handiwork with pride. "Thar she swings out into the current-bound for Tennessee. I call that a good squar' lead."

"Ther depot's 'bout followin' suit," observed Thrasher fishing in his pocket for a twist of home-made tobacco, and helping himself to a liberal "chaw."

The depot building moved slightly, lifted, turned slowly with a waltzing motion, and drifted off down stream. Telegraph-posts followed, washed up and falling like trees with a sullen splash. A stack or two of rough food, straw and fodder came sailing by, bowing and bending with the motion of the

water. Then more logs and a great pile of drift. And the river was still rising.

John, Dick, and Ralph Woody went out to the extreme end of a knoll of ground that was now a peninsula, and stood looking down on the flood with vivid interest. A hammock of fence-rails, planks, and débris, carried by the current around the end of the bridge, drifted past the spot where they stood; there was a dead tree lying across it, with three or four chickens perched among its branches; a drowned hog was caught between two of the planks. The men looked at each other, but said nothing. More trash, and the body of a dead horse; then something square and large like a great dark box, that turned over and over as it floated down; then another dead horse. Dick glanced round with a great fear in his eyes. "The stage!" he said hoarsely.

"Thet fust horse was Carter's dun mare, an' the other—” "Was mine," finished John, with a break in his voice"I know. And Charlie?"

"They'll be out on the hillside safe enough. Carter ain't one to be took onawar' an' lose his head. He knows the ways of water good es any man upon the mountain. Old man Carter knows what to do in er freshet. Depen' upon it he had all ther folks out on ther hillside long afore the wust come. The stable an' lot is a sight nigher the river then the house.“ Woody spoke reassuringly, but his heart was small and faint within him.

The sun, clear and bright, rose above the crests of the eastern mountains, and sent long level rays like golden fingers across the tree-tops and the valley, touching the breast of the raging flood and the anxious brows of the pallid groups. And the river rose and rose, inch by inch, foot by foot; and the people waited breathless.

A sound from up by the bridge-a crashing, and tearing and rending, high above the steady monotonous roar of the water. The iron-work was giving way, was snapping like glass before the assault of the terrible battering-ram the flood was hurling against it. A house, driven end foremost against the pile of logs and débris already collected; a house with human beings-men, women, little children-on the roof, crouching, clinging in mortal terror to the very shingles; the wild

wail of whose agony and fear rose high above the fury of the flood, as the house struck. The bridge parted; the hammock, freed at last, broke and floated down stream in fragments; the house remained for a moment stationary, hung against the masonry of the middle pier. God! for power to save them! for strength to hold back the death-torrent! The house bent with the force of the current, recovered itself, bent again. Dick thrust himself in front of John, and held him forcibly back behind his broad shoulder: he should not see it. The flooring of the bridge gave way, the house swung round with a sudden lurch as it was caught by the unobstructed might of the torrent; one end caught against the pier held it still, it careened to one side more and more, the water was too strong, and it capsized slowly. A wail broke from the helpless spectators. Women cast their aprons over their faces and sobbed aloud, and men wrung their hard hands together and groaned.

Is there no end to tragedy? Something else comes floating down the death-stream, past the ruined bridge, in the wake of the house which had proved a sepulchre. A boat; one of the kind peculiar to the rivers of the South-flat-bottomed, almost square at stem and stern, but raked so as to ride the water like a duck. In it stood a boy, waving his hands to them entreatingly, calling aloud in a voice inaudible to them, lost in the roar of the flood. As it neared they saw something white lying in the bottom of the boat, huddled in a heap at the boy's feet.

"It's Charlie!" muttered John, hoarsely, and began to tear off his coat, forgetful of his fifty years and his eighteen-stone weight.

Dick caught him by the arm. "Hold on, John!" he cried, "you can't do it man; you'll be drowned afore you've gone fifty yards. Hand along thet rope, Thrasher; and stand by, fellows, to haul in when I give ther sign. I'm goin'."

And in less than a moment he was stripped to the trousers, had a rope fastened securely under his shoulders, and a knife between his teeth to cut it if it should foul, and was up to his neck in the turbid flood.

Woody, with his legs well apart and his back braced against a tree, paid out the rope steadily, while Thrasher and John stood by watchfully, ready to render aid at a second's notice.

The rest of the villagers, scenting the new excitement, came hurrying up; and Knapp, at John's suggestion, tore off to the store for more rope.

Dick was a stout swimmer and a wary one. Where the water was backed over the land the work was easy. With great, strong strokes he swam, going with the current, and saving his strength for the dash into the strong water when the boat should drift near enough. On it came, the boy kneeling in the head watching eagerly the white mass in the bottom motionless. Gathering all his strength, Dick drew hard on the rope to slacken it, and dashed into the current. It was hard work, cruel work, battling with the greedy water for its prey; but he fought on with the dauntless resolution that was part of his nature.

The great muscles stood out in the powerful arms; the broad, bare chest rose and fell with each magnificent stroke as evenly and rhythmically as a piece of machinery; the blue eyes were steady and very watchful. They neared each other, the drifting boat and the struggling man. John fell on his knees and cried aloud, "God help him!" and the crowd took it up, crying too, "God help him!”

Woody paid out steadily, letting the rope slip through his hands swiftly as it was needed. The two objects in the water were approaching still more nearly to each other. The boy leaned far over the side, in his eagerness, and stretched out his hand. Dick caught at it, missed it; caught at it again, and was drawn to the side of the boat. A mighty shout went up from the people, who cried, "Thank God! thank God!" But the end was not yet.

Dick swam by the side of the boat, with one hand on the gunwale; but both were in the current drifting down, and there was danger of the rope fouling and dragging him under. Suddenly the strain on it ceased; it hung limp in Woody's hand, and he pulled it in, a yard at a time. Had it broken? The men groaned in terror and excitement as the boat drifted on.

About a mile below, a great mountain-spur jutted boldly out into the valley, causing the river to make a sharp bend in order to sweep around it. In the elbow formed by this bluff the flood was backed, making a great pond of eddy-water comparatively still. As the current rushed down the centre chan