"Gysbert, they have gone and left us!" cried the terrified Jacqueline. "Left us to perish here like rats drowned in a trap when the flood reaches us! Oh, it is cruel, cruel!"
"Nonsense!" retorted her brother. "This is the finest thing that could have happened. I am certain the flood will not rise higher than these windows, so we will be perfectly safe from drowning. And now that they have deserted the house, we can turn our attention to getting out of the door somehow, and not bother with these window bars any longer. I feel certain the wood of the door will yield to this knife, and when we have made a hole big enough, we can crawl out, or burst it open, or pull back the bolts, or something. But we must be quick about it, for we want to get ahead of Dirk and warn the city before October third. That is the day after to-morrow." In the pitchy darkness they groped and found the door. Gysbert began immediately to hack away at one of the panels, finding that it offered much less resistance than did the deeply imbedded iron bars of the window.
"Courage, Jacqueline!" he called at intervals. "We are going to make it soon, without fail. But thou hadst best keep watch at the window." The storm far from abating, increased in violence. The wind shifted again from the northwest to the southwest, piling up the waters of the German ocean in huge masses, and dashing them against the broken dykes. At about eleven o'clock, the ominous, distant murmur increased to a loud roar. Jacqueline at the window called to Gysbert, and together they watched the terrible, awe-inspiring sight, or as much of it as they could see in the darkness.
The dreadful _something_ approached nearer and nearer, till, with an ear-splitting sound it suddenly appeared out of the gloom,--a huge black wall of water nearly ten feet high, rolling forward with incredible swiftness, deluging, submerging, or pushing before it everything that came in its way. For one horrible instant it surged about the house, rocking the structure to its very foundations, and threatening to uproot it outright, and fling it to the ground. But the house stood firm, and the vanguard of the flood passed on, leaving the water well up to the second story window, and burying all else in its swirling depths.
