But suddenly we heard the thunder of the banks tumbling behind us, and to the right and left, and the savage growl of the released water as it sprang through the breaches. To my dying day, I think, I shall not forget the sight of a great fluid column that burst through the dike at the edge of the grove of trees, and, by the tremendous impetus of its rush, seemed turned into a solid thing. Like an enormous ram, it plowed the soil to a depth of twenty feet, uprooting acres of the immense trees like stubble turned over by the plowshare. The uproar was so awful that for an instant the coolest of us lost our self-control. Yet we knew that we had not the fraction of a second to waste. The breaking of the banks had caused the water again rapidly to rise about us. In a little while it was once more as high as our waists. In the excitement and confusion, deafened by the noise and blinded by the flying 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 ascended from the electrical ship. We pushed first one way and then another, staggering through the rushing waters in search of it. Finally we succeeded in locating it, and with all our strength hurried toward it. Then there came a 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 a vast cavity in the ground, and scooped out the whole of the grove before our eyes as easily as a gardener lifts a sod with his spade. Our last hope was gone. For a moment the level of the water around us sank again, as it poured into the immense excavation where the grove had stood, but in an instant it was reinforced from all sides and began once more rapidly to rise. We gave ourselves up for lost, and, indeed, there did not seem any possible hope of salvation. Even in the extremity I saw Colonel Smith lifting the form of Aina, who had fainted, above the surface of the surging water, while Sydney Phillips stood by his side and aided him in supporting the unconscious girl. "We stayed a little too long," was the only sound I heard from Mr. Edison. The huge bulk of the power house partially protected us against the force of the current, and the water spun us around in great eddies. These swept us this way and that, but yet we managed to cling together, determined not to be separated in death if we could avoid it. Suddenly a cry rang out directly above our heads: "Jump for your lives, and be quick!" At the same instant the ends of several 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.