"Come still farther,"
glancing round for the safest refuge. "Merciful God! Look at the river!"
The Ohio, beaten back by the lashed and maddened Mississippi, was
leaping in great furious waves, high and wild, as the ocean's in a
tempest. These monstrous, foaming billows were springing far up the
shores on both sides of the river, and devouring vast stretches of land
covered with gigantic trees. The giants of the forest fell, groaning,
into the boiling, swirling flood which leapt to catch them and swallowed
them up with a hideous, hissing noise. Sunken trees which had lain for
ages on the bottom of the river rose above the water like ghosts rising
to meet the newly slain.
"The boat," moaned Ruth. "Uncle Philip's boat, and the sick man!"
Every eye turned in the direction of the island. No one spoke after that
first look. None marvelled to see that the boat was missing; nothing
afloat could live in that seething maelstrom, thickened with melted
earth and tangled with fallen trees. The overwhelming thing which their
faculties could not grasp was the fact that the island itself was gone.
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