“Do you fear a storm, Joseph?” asked Alix.

“I do not know too much,” he replied; “but when you are near, all dangers seem great.”

We found the camp deserted; all our companions were on board the flatboat.  The wind rose to fury, and now the rain fell in torrents.  We descended to our rooms.  Papa was asleep.  We did not disturb him, though we were greatly frightened....  Joseph and Gordon went below to sleep.  Mario and his son loosed the three bull-dogs, but first removed the planks that joined the boat to the shore.  Then he hoisted a great lantern upon a mast in the bow, lighted his pipe, and sat down to keep his son awake with stories of voyages and hunts.

The storm seemed to increase in violence every minute.  The rain redoubled its fury.  Frightful thunders echoed each other’s roars.  The flatboat, tossed by the wind and waves, seemed to writhe in agony, while now and then the trunks of uprooted trees, lifted by the waves, smote it as they passed.  Without a thought of the people in the hut, I made every effort to keep awake in the face of these menaces of Nature.  Suzanne held my hand tightly in hers, and several times spoke to me in a low voice, fearing to wake papa, whom we could hear breathing regularly, sleeping without a suspicion of the surrounding dangers.  Yet an hour had not passed ere I was sleeping profoundly.  A knock on the partition awoke us and made us run to the door.  Mario was waiting there.

“Quick, monsieur!  Get the young ladies ready.  The flatboat has probably but ten minutes to live.  We must take the women and children ashore.  And please, signorina,”—­to my sister,—­“call M. and Mme. Carpentier.”  But Joseph had heard all, and showed himself at the door of our room.

“Ashore?  At such a time?”

“We have no choice.  We must go or perish.”

“But where?”

“To the hut.  We have no time to talk.  My family is ready"....

It took but a few minutes to obey papa’s orders.  We were already nearly dressed; and as sabots were worn at that time to protect the shoes from the mud and wet, we had them on in a moment.  A thick shawl and a woolen hood completed our outfits.  Alix was ready in a few moments.

“Save your jewels,—­those you prize most,—­my love,” cried Carpentier, “while I dress.”

Alix ran to her dressing-case, threw its combs, brushes, etc., pell-mell into the bureau, opened a lower part of the case and took out four or five jewel-boxes that glided into her pockets, and two lockets that she hid carefully in her corsage.  Joseph always kept their little fortune in a leathern belt beneath his shirt.  He put on his vest and over it a sort of great-coat, slung his gun by its shoulder-belt, secured his pistols, and then taking from one of his trunks a large woolen cloak he wrapped Alix in it, and lifted her like a child of eight, while she crossed her little arms about his neck and rested her head on his bosom.  Then he followed us into Mario’s room, where his two associates were waiting.  At another time we might have laughed at Maggie, but not now.  She had slipped into her belt two horse-pistols.  In one hand she held in leash her bull-dog Tom, and in the other a short carbine, her own property.