Phil had hardly time to realize the situation before the boat began whirling about madly, and a moment later she plunged head foremost through the crevasse and out into the seething waste of waters that was now overspreading fields and woodlands beyond. As the land here lay much lower than the surface of the river, and as the country had not yet had time, since the levee broke, to fill to anything like the river level, passing through the crevasse was like plunging over a cataract, and after passing through, the boat was carried forward at a truly fearful speed across the fields. Fortunately, she encountered no obstacle. Had she struck anything in that mad career, the box-like craft would have been broken instantly to bits. As she receded from the river she left the worst of the fog behind. It was possible now to see for fifty or a hundred yards in every direction, and what the boys saw was appalling. There were horses and cattle frantically struggling in the water, only to sink beneath it at last, for even the strongest horse could not swim far in a surging torrent like that. There were cross currents of great violence too, and eddies and whirlpools created by the seemingly angry efforts of the water to find the lowest levels and occupy them. These erratic currents took possession of the boat, and whirled her hither and thither, until her crew lost all sense of direction and distance, and everything else except the necessity of clinging to the sweep bars to avoid being spilled overboard by the sudden careenings of the boat to one side and then the other, and her plungings as the water swept her onward. Once they saw a human being struggling in the seething water. A moment later he was gone, but whether drowned or carried away to some point of rescue there was no way of finding out. Once they swept past a stately dwelling-house, submerged except as to its roof; what fate had befallen its inhabitants they could never know, for the next instant a strong current caught the boat, and drove it, side first, straight toward a great barn that had been carried off its foundations and was now afloat. For a moment the boys expected to be driven against the barn with appalling violence--an event that would have meant immediate destruction. But the currents changed in an instant, so that the barn was carried in one direction and the boat in another. As the two drifted apart there were despairing cries from the floating building, which had been badly crushed in collision with something, and was in danger of falling to pieces at any moment. The boys looked, and caught a glimpse of a number of negro children clinging to the wrecked structure. An instant later the barn disappeared in what was left of the fog.