“But we must escape!  We must look to ourselves!” shouted Mr. Alcando.  “This is not time for making moving pictures.”

“We’ve got to make it this time!” Joe said, falling in with Blake.  “You’ll find you’ve got to make moving pictures when you can, not when you want to!”

To do justice to Mr. Alcando he was not a coward, but this was very unusual for him, to make pictures in the face of a great danger—­to stand calmly with a camera, turning the crank and getting view after view on the strip of celluloid film, while a flood of water rushed down on you.  It was something he never dreamed of.

But he was not a “quitter,” which word, though objectionable as slang, is most satisfactorily descriptive.

“I’ll help!” the young Spaniard cried, as he followed Blake and Joe down to where the cameras and films were kept.

On came the rush of water, released by the accidental opening of the upper lock gates before the lower ones were closed.  The waters of Gatun Lake were rushing to regain the freedom denied them by the building of the locks.

But they were not to have their own way for long.  Even this emergency, great as it was, unlikely as it was to happen, had been foreseen by those who built the Canal.

“The dam!  Swing over the emergency dam!” came the cry.

The Bohio was now straining and pulling at her cables.  Fortunately they were long enough to enable her to rise on the flood of the rushing water, or she might have been held down, and so overwhelmed.  But she rose like a cork, though she plunged and swayed under the influence of the terrible current, which was like a mill race.

“Use both cameras!” cried Blake, as he and Joe each came on deck bearing one, while Mr. Alcando followed with spare reels of film.  “We’ll both take pictures,” Blake went on.  “One set may be spoiled!”

Then he and his chum, setting up their cameras on the tripods, aimed the lenses at the advancing flood, at the swung-back gates and at the men on top of the concrete walls, endeavoring to bring into place the emergency dam.

It was a risky thing to do, but then Blake and Joe were used to doing risky things, and this was no more dangerous than the chances they had taken in the jungle, or in earthquake land.

On rushed the water.  The tug rose and fell on the bosom of the flood, unconfined as it was by the restraining gates.  And as the sturdy vessel swayed this way and that, rolling at her moorings and threatening every moment to break and rush down the Canal, Blake and Joe stood at their posts, turning the cranks.  And beside them stood Mr. Alcando, if not as calm as the boys, at least as indifferent to impending fate.

Captain Wiltsey of the Bohio had given orders to run the engine at full speed, hoping by the use of the propeller to offset somewhat the powerful current.  But the rush of water was too great to allow of much relief.