Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1898-12-22


should be swept from our feet, and once
down in that torrent there would have
been little chance of our ever getting
our heads above it's level Supporting
ourselves as best we could with the aid
OF tho walls, we partly ran and were
partly swept along, until, when we
reached the outer end of the passage and
emerged into tho open air, the flood was
swirling about our shoulders.
iere there was an opportunity to
clutch some of tho ornamental work
surrounding the doorway, and thus we
managed to stay our mad progress and
gradually to work out of the current
until we found that the water, having
now an abundance of room to spread,
had fallen again as low as our knees.
But suddenly we heard tho thunder
Of the banks, tumbling behind us, and
10 the right and left, and the savage
growl of the released water as it sprang
through the breaches.
To my dying day, l think, l shall
not forget the sight of great fluid col.
ann that burst through the dixie at the
odge of the grove of trees, and, by the
tremendous impetus OF its rush, seemed
turned into solid thing
Like an enormous ram, it plowed the
oil to depth of 90 feet. uprooting
acres of the immense trees like stubble
turned over by the plowsharo.
The uproar was go awful that for an
instant the coolest of US lost our self
control Yet wo knew we had not the
fraction Of a second to waste. Tn,
breaking of the banks had caused the
water again rapidly to rise about us. An
little while it was once more as high
as our waists.
In the excitement and confusion,
deafened by the noise and blinded by
tho lying foam, we were in danger of
becoming separated in the flood We no
longer knew certainly in what direction
was the tree by whose aid we had as
cended from the electrical ship. We
pushed first ono way and then another,
staggering through the rushing waters
i'll search of it. Finally we succeeded in
locating it, and with all our strength
hurried toward it,
Then there came noise as if the
globe OF Mars had been split asunder
and another great head of water hurled
itself down upon the soil before us, and,
without taking time to spread, bored
vast cavity in tho ground and scooped
out the whole Of tho grove before our
eyes as easily as a gardener lifts q sod
with his spade.
Our last hope was gone. For mo.
ment the level of the water around us
sank again, as it poured into the i'm.
mense excavation where the grove had
stood, but in an instant it was re.en.
forced from all sides and began once
moro rapidly to rise.
We gave ourselves mp for lost, and,
indeed, there did not EN- any possible
hope Of salvation.
Even in this extremity saw Colonel
smith lifting the form of Alma, who
had tainted, above the surface of the
surSing water. while Sydney Phillips
stood by his side and aided him in sup.
porting the unconscious girl.
1--WE staid little too long,, >" was tbs
only sound l heard from Mr. Edison.
The huge bulk of the power house
partially protected us against the force
Of the current, and the water spun
ground MS in great eddies These swept
u this way and that, but yet we man.
aged to cling together, determined not
~ be separated i'll death if we could
avoid it.
Suddenly cry rang out directly
above our heads:
Jump for your lives, and be quick
AT the same instant the ends of sew.
eral ropes splashed into the water.
We glanced upward, and there,
within three or four yards of our heads
hung the electrical ship, which we had
left moored at the top of the tree.
Tom, the expert electrician from Mr..
Edison's shop, who had remained in
charge of the ship, had never once
dreamed of such thing as deserving us.
The moment he saw the water bursting
over the dam and evidently flooding the
building which we had entered be cast
off his moorings, as we subsequently
learned, and lowered over the entrance
to the power house getting as low down
as possible and keeping a sharp watch
for us,
But most of the electric lights in the
sanity had besn carried down by tbs
rSt rush of the water, and in the dark
loss he did not see Us when we emerged
from the entrance. 1t was only after the
Weeping away of the grove of trees
lad allowed food of light 20 stream
upon the scene from cluster Of cleo
tric lamps on distant portion CT the
bank on the Syrtis that had not yet
given way that he caught sight of us.
(TO RE CONTINUED1