The roof had almost completely disappeared under the waters, and human forms grouped around the chimney could be vaguely distinguished.
Every moment, at a little distance from the craft, protected from collision by the three poplars, which served as a sort of natural palisade, thanks to David's foresight, floated all kinds of rubbish, carried along on the current which the little boat was to cross in a few moments.
On one side, beams and girders, and fragments of carpentry proceeding from the crumbling buildings; on the other side, enormous haycocks and stacks of straw, lifted from their base and dragged solidly along by the waters, like so many floating mountains, submerging everything they encountered; again, gigantic trees, torn up by the roots, rushed rapidly by as lightly as bits of straw upon a babbling brook, while in their rear followed doors unloosed from their hinges, furniture, mattresses, and casks, and sometimes in the midst of these wrecks could be seen cattle, some drowned, others struggling above the abyss soon to disappear under it, and, in strange contrast, domestic ducks, instinctively following the other animals, floated over the water in undisturbed tranquillity. Elsewhere, heavy carts were whirled above the gulf, and sometimes sank under the irresistible shock of immense floats of wood a hundred feet long and twenty feet wide borne along with the drift.
It was in the midst of these floating perils, upon an impetuous and irresistible current, that David and Frederick were forced to direct their boat in order to reach the farmhouse.
Then the danger of the salvage was becoming more imminent.
Frederick felt it, and as he saw David survey the terrible scene with an expression of distress, he said, in a firm and serious tone:
"You were right, my friend, we shall soon need all our strength and all our energy. This rest was necessary, but it seems cruel to take a rest with such a spectacle under our eyes."
"Yes, my child, courage is necessary even to take rest; blind recklessness does not see and does not try to see the danger, but true courage coolly looks at the chances. Hence, it generally triumphs over danger. If we had not taken some rest, we would certainly be dragged into the middle of the gulf that we are about to cross, and we would be destroyed."