"I know'd well enough what it all meant, but knowin' didn't give me any great satesfaction, since I believed that in another minit the cyprus mout cave in too! I didn't stay the ten thousanth fraction o' a minit. I hurried to get back to the groun'; an' soon reached the place whar the grape-vine joined on to the cyprus. Thur warn't no grape-vine to be seen. It war clear gone! The tother tree to which its roots had been clingin' had gone into the river, takin' the fox-grape along wi' it. It war that gev the pluck I felt when descendin' fro' the neest. I looked below. The river had changed its channel. Instead o' runnin' twenty yards from the spot, it war surgin' along clost to the cyprus, which in another minit mout topple over, whirl along, and be swallowed in the frothin' water. "I ked do nuthin' but stay whar I war,--nothin' but wait an' watch,--listenin' to the screamin' o' the eagles,--skeeart like myself,--the hoarse roarin' o' the angry water, an' the crashin' o' the trees, as one arter another fell victims to the flood." I was fascinated by this narration. Old Zeb's thoughts, notwithstanding the _patois_ in which they were expressed, had risen to the sublime; and although he paused for some minutes, I made no attempt to interrupt his reflections, but in silence awaited the continuance of his tale. "Wal, what do ye suppose I did nixt?" asked Zeb. "Really, I cannot imagine," I replied, considerably astonished by Old Zeb's abrupt and unexpected question. "Wal, ye don't suppose I kim down from the tree?" "I don't see how you could." "Neyther did I, for I kedn't. I mout as well 'a' tried to git down the purpendiklar face o' the Chickasaw bluffs, or the wall o' Jackson Court-House. So I guv it up, an' stayed whar I war, cross-legs on a branch o' the tree. It warn't the most comf'table kind o' seat; but I hed somethin' else than cushions to think of. I didn't know the minit I mout be shot out into the Massissippi; an' as I niver war much o' a swimmer,--to say nothin' o' bein' smashed by the branches in fallin',--I warn't over satesfied wi' my sitiwation.