Mass' George Part 38

"All of us, I hope," he said. "We shall easily drop off after our past night's watch."

"But who could go to sleep feeling so hungry as this?" I protested.

"You," he said, smiling; "and recollect the French proverb, _Qui dort dine_. You know what that means."

"No, father," I said, dolefully.

"Shame! You should not forget your French. He who sleeps dines, my boy."

"Perhaps that's so in France, father, but it isn't so here, in the midst of a flood, and I don't think any Frenchman would say so if he were up in this tree like we are now."

I climbed down again to look at the notch I had made, and see if there was any difference, then sent up a shout of delight, for the water had sunk a foot, and was going down so rapidly that I could almost trace its descent.

It was as my father had hoped; the flood was running out with the tide; and as the cause was over we had every prospect of being set at liberty before many hours had pa.s.sed.

It was the apparent certainty of this hope which enabled us to bear patiently the rest of our imprisonment, and the pangs of hunger. For night came with the water still falling; but the fact was plainly before us--we should have to pa.s.s one night in the tree.

I looked forward to the long, dreary hours with horror, but after getting astride of one branch, and putting my arms round another, feeling half ready to groan with misery, the present dropped away all at once, and I was conscious of nothing till the sun was brightly shining again, when I awoke to find that my wrists were tightly bound together on the other side of the great bough I had embraced; and on recovering my senses sufficiently to look down, I saw that the water had not all drained away, there being several feet in the lower part of the clearings, but the house was so nearly standing out clear that there could not have been more than a couple of feet in depth on the floor.

Morgan and Hannibal were already down, wading breast-high towards the house; and as my father set free my hands, we prepared to follow.

It was no easy task, for the branches were far apart, and covered with slimy mud, but we descended cautiously, promising to come back with ropes to lower poor Sarah and Pomp.

The latter looked gloomy and discontented on being told that he was to stay and keep Sarah company; but he proceeded to walk along to her as we lowered ourselves down, and then contrived to be first, for his bare feet slipped on the muddy bough, and he went headlong down splash into five feet of water and mud, to rise again looking the most pitiable object imaginable.

"Pomp come up again?" he asked, dolefully.

"No; go and have a good wash," said my father, and as the boy went off swimming and wading, we two descended into the thin mud and water, and made our way toward the house.

I looked up at my father to see what he would say to the desolation, as I saw the change that had taken place in so short a time, and then, miserably weak and half-hysterical as I was--perhaps that was the cause--I burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. For Pomp had come close up behind us, after an expedition to the hut that had been made for his home, and his sharp voice rose suddenly just in the midst of our sad thoughts, with--

"Oh! Here a mess!"

Even my father could not help laughing as he looked at the boy.

But there was nothing humorous in the scene to Pomp, who looked up at my father with his brow knit, and continued--

"Place all gone--wash away, and can't find my tick."

"The hut washed away?" asked my father.

"Iss; all agone."

"Never mind! We must build another. Well, Morgan, can you find anything to eat?"

For Morgan had just waded out of the house again with a basket in his hand, and he hastened to open it and produce a couple of roast fowls and a couple of loaves of bread, the latter all swollen up into a great sop, while the former were covered with a thin coating of mud.

"Quick!" said my father, seizing one of the fowls and cutting it in two; "get a rope from the shed, and the little ladder. Take this to your wife at once. No; stop a minute. Here, you go, George; there is some wine in the cupboard."

I went splashing through the door, and fetched the bottle, for I knew exactly where it stood; and on my return this was given to Morgan, who was sent at once to the tree, while we four stood there in the water eating the remains of the fowls ravenously, both Hannibal and Pomp evidently enjoying the well-soaked bread, which was not bad to one so hungry as I, after I had cut away the muddy outside.

"Yes," said my father, smiling at Pomp, after we had relieved the terrible cravings of hunger from which we had suffered; "it is a mess.

But look, George, the water is still sinking fast."

That was plain enough to see now, and as it went lower and lower, the damage done, though of course great, was not what might have been expected. We had been saved from utter destruction by the fact that only a moderate-sized clearing had been made in the virgin forest, whose mighty trunks had formed a natural fence round our house, and checked the rush of the flood, which, instead of reaching us in an overwhelming wave, had been broken up, and its force destroyed before it could reach us.

Even the open fences about the garden had escaped, the water having played freely in and out; and though Hannibal's hut had been lifted up and floated right away, the fence-top was now appearing above the water, and seemed to be quite unharmed.

The water sank so fast now that my father shouted to Morgan to let Sarah stay where she was till there was solid earth for her to descend to, and consequently he came down to see what he could do to help. That amounted to nothing, for until the water had pa.s.sed away nothing could be done, save splash here and there, looking at the fruit-trees bestrewed with moss and muddy reeds and gra.s.s, while Morgan uttered groan after groan, as he at last saw the bushes and the tops of his vegetables appear covered with slime.

"The place is ruined, sir," he groaned. "Whatever is to be done? Go back to the old country?"

"Get to work as soon as the place is dry," replied my father. "A few showers of rain after the sun has dried and cracked the mud will soon wash your garden clean."

Morgan shook his head. "And I don't know what my poor wife will say to her kitchen."

"Ah, now you are touching upon the more serious part, my man," said my father. "Come, Morgan, you and I have got the better of worse troubles than this, so set to work, and by some means contrive to get fires going in each of the rooms."

"With wet wood," said Morgan, grumpily.

"Why, it's only wet outside," I cried. "Here, Pomp, try and find the little chopper. Know where it is?"

"Ise know where chopper, but de hut all gone away."

The wood-shed was standing though, and before very long, with Hannibal's help, a good basketful of dry wood was cut; and after a long struggle and several dryings in the hot sun, the tinder and matches acted, and big fires were blazing in the house, whose floors were now only covered with mud.

Already the thatch and shingle roof had ceased to drip, and was rapidly drying, while by midday Sarah was busy at work with brush and pail cleansing the floors, and keeping the two blacks and myself busy bringing things out to dry, while Morgan was removing mud from the various objects within the house.

The main difficulty we had to encounter was how to find a dry resting-place for the night. Sheets and blankets promised to be quite fit for use by sundown, but the question was where to lay them. Every one naturally objected to the trees, and the ridge of the roof was no more inviting than on the first night. But a little ingenuity soon put all right. Timber was so plentiful with us that poles and planks lay piled up at the back of the house, and after a number of these had been hunted up, from where they had floated among the trees, and laid in the full sunshine, a platform was built up high above the muddy earth, and then another upon which pine boughs were laid, and good, dry resting-places contrived for our weary bones.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

It is needless to relate the shifts and plans adopted to restore the place to its former state, but we were favoured by the weather, a long spell of hot sunshine working wonders, and the rapid drying and the work of many hands soon produced a change. In two days we could go about on dry ground. In four, mud was scaling over everything in cakes, and being cracked into dust it regularly powdered off the trees, and a couple of tremendous tropical showers sufficed to clear off the remainder from twig and leaf, so that what with the rapid vegetation, and the clearing effects of rain and dew, a month had hardly pa.s.sed before the place began to look very much as it did before the misfortune, Morgan informing me smilingly that the soft mud was as good for the garden as a great dressing of manure.

Our furniture in the house was of the simplest, and though Sarah declared that the place would never be the same again, I very soon began to forget all about our trouble, and was only reminded of it by the wisps of dry gra.s.s and muddy, woody twigs that clung here and there among some of the trees.

On one occasion I found Pomp busy with a bucket of water and a brush down at the bottom of the garden, where he was scrubbing away at something black.

"Hallo!" I exclaimed. "What's that?"

"'Gator head, Ma.s.s' George. Pomp find um 'tuck in dah 'tween um two trees."

He ill.u.s.trated his meaning by showing me how the head had been washed from its place, and swept between a couple of tree-stumps, where it had remained covered with mud and rubbish, till it had caught his eye, such a trophy being too valuable to lie there in neglect.

I stopped till he had done, and then, all wet and glistening, the great dried head with its gaping jaws was replaced on the spike-nail Morgan had driven in the tree.

"Dah, you 'top till water come and wash um down again, and den Pomp come and wash um up."