Dr. Hart hesitated, and seemed to debate with himself, and then answered:

"I must stay with my patient for another hour, and then, if there should be no change in her condition, I shall have to trouble you to let me out, Mr. Martin--since you have got no warrant to keep me here," he added, with a smile.

The man put up the last bar with a bang, and looked as if he wished he had the authority of which the doctor spoke.

Dr. Hart returned to the room of his patient whom he found in the same comatose state, watched by Miss Tabby, who was moaning over the young babe that lay across her lap, and by Lyon Berners, who sat beside the bed holding his wife's cold hand.

"Where is Miss Pendleton? I did not see her as I came up the pa.s.sage,"

inquired the doctor, after he had looked at his patient.

"The warden's darter came and took her away to sleep in _her_ room, and high time too, poor young lady, for she was about worn out," said Miss Tabby.

The doctor took a seat near the head of the bed, where he could watch the sick woman.

And all became very silent in the cell, until at length Miss Tabby spoke.

"What's that roaring? It can't be thunder this time o' year."

"It is the creek swollen by the rain. I understand that it is very high, lashed into a foam," answered the doctor.

"Oh," said Miss Tabby, indifferently; and all became again silent in the cell but for the sound of many waters heard more and more distinctly even through the heavy walls.

At length the doctor arose to go. He made a final careful examination of his quiet patient, and then, turning to her distressed husband, said:

"I must ask you to go out with me, Mr. Berners, to bring back some medicine for your wife, which I wish to put up at my office."

Lyon Berners silently arose and took up his hat. And the two gentlemen left the cell together.

The warden had gone to bed, but had left orders with the night-watch to let the visitors out when they wished to go.

Once more the heavy bars fell, and the thick doors were opened.

"Heaven and earth! what a night!" exclaimed the doctor, as he b.u.t.toned his surtout tightly across his breast, and prepared to brave the fury of the storm.

Lyon Berners, scarcely conscious of the state of the weather, followed him.

It was now dawn, and the black sky had faded to a dark gray.

The rain was pouring down as if all "the gates of heaven" had been opened for another deluge.

The river and the creek lashed to fury, were roaring and rushing onward, like devouring monsters.

"Merciful Heaven! Talk of the fury of fire, but look here!" exclaimed the doctor, glancing around. But his voice was lost in the sound of many waters.

Their road, after pa.s.sing the outer gates of the prison, lay away from the banks of the creek, and down the course of the river, towards the village.

But for the darkness of that stormy dawn they might have seen a fearful sight below. The lower portion of the town was already overflowed, and the waters were still rising. Many of the people were gathered upon the house-tops, and others were out in boats, engaged in rescuing their neighbors from the flooded dwellings.

But for the horrible roaring of the torrents, they might have heard the shouts and cries of the terrified inhabitants shocked and half-frenzied by the suddenness of this overwhelming calamity.

But they heard and saw but little of this as they plunged on through the darkness, in the deluge of rain and thunder of waters. Unawares they were drawing near their fate. They came upon it gradually.

"Good Heaven! what is the matter down there?" suddenly cried the doctor, as he dimly discerned the forms of men, women, and children gathered upon the house-tops, which did not look like house-tops, but like flat-boats floating upon the dark waters.

"I say, Berners, what the deuce is the matter down there? Your eyes are younger than mine--look," anxiously insisted the doctor, peering down into the gloomy and horrible chaos.

"It is a flood. The river is over the town," replied Mr. Berners, carelessly; for he, in his grief, would not have minded if the whole of the Black Valley had been turned into a black sea.

"The river over the town! Good Heaven! And you say that as indifferently as if hundreds of human lives and millions of money were not imperilled," cried the doctor, breaking away from his companion, and running down towards the village.

A terrible, a heart-crushing sight met his eyes!

The doctor's family occupied a beautiful low-roofed villa on the opposite bank of Violet Run, a little stream of water making up from the Black River. The doctor's first thought was of his own home, of course, and he ran swiftly on, through darkness and storm, until he was suddenly brought up on the banks of the run. Here he stood aghast. The pretty rustic bridge that had spanned the run, and led to his own terraced grounds, was swept away; and the run, now swollen to the size of a raging river, roared between himself and his home.

His home!--where was it?

He strained his aching eyes through the murky gloom to look for it, and oh! horror of horrors! his terraced garden and his low-roofed villa had disappeared, and in their place what seemed a raft, with human beings on, floated about at the mercy of the flood.

With a pang of despair, he recognized it as his own house-top, with probably his wife and children clinging to it; and at the same instant the raft, or roof, was violently whirled around, and swept under by the force of the current.

With a cry of desperation, the wretched husband and father flung up his arms to leap into the boiling flood, when he was caught from behind and held fast.

"What would you do? Rush to certain destruction?" said the voice of Lyon Berners, who had just reached the spot.

"My wife! my children!" shrieked the man, dashing his hands to his head.

"Come back, or you will be swept away," said Mr. Berners, forcibly drawing him from the spot just an instant before the water rolled over it.

And still the rain poured down like another deluge, and still the waters roared and the waters rose, and dark night hung over the dawn.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE GREAT VALLEY FLOOD.

The rearing river, backward pressed, Shook all her trembling banks amain, Then madly at the eygre's breast Flung up her weltering walls again.

Then banks came down with ruin and rout, Then beaten foam flew round about, Then all the mighty floods were out.--JEAN INGELOW.

Meanwhile the worried and angry prison guard had barred up the doors for the last time that night, to remain barred, as they said, against all comers until the usual hour of opening next day; and then they went to bed, and to sleep, little dreaming of the mighty power that would force an entrance before the light.

Left alone in the prison cell to watch her sleeping patient, Miss Tabby sat and whimpered over the baby, which she still held in her lap.

Sometimes she listened to the roaring of the river outside, and sometimes she muttered to herself after the manner of lonely old ladies.

"Oh, indeed I do wish they would come. One on 'em, at any rate! Oh, it's horrid to be left alone here in this dissolute place, with a dying 'oman, and she my own dear nurse child," she whined, wringing and twisting her fingers, and looking from the face of the sleeping babe to that of the unconscious mother.