"I'll save you yet, my darling," muttered Towton, setting his teeth. "We must make for Gatehead," and he drove his spurs into the animal, which now was becoming unmanageable with the roaring of the flood. Ida, almost insensible with terror, clung to her lover's neck, and the horse, making no more of the double burden than if it had been a feather, tore at top speed along the road between the torrent and the precipice. There was no safety on either side, as the precipice could not be climbed, and the dry bed of the stream merely offered a deeper grave. Fortunately, the road sloped gradually to the mouth of the valley, some two miles away, therefore the downward trend offered extra means to escape the pursuing greedy waters. A backward glance showed Towton that a tremendous flood was shooting out of the bottle-mouth of the upper gorge with terrific rapidity. The whole of the huge lake, artificial as well as natural, was emptying itself in one vast outpour, and owing to the narrowness of the valley the concentrated force was gigantic. If the flood caught them they would either be dashed to pieces against the rocks or would be borne onward--horse and maid and man--to be expelled at Gatehead, as if fired from the mouth of a cannon. "Oh, God, save us! Oh, God, save us!" was all that Ida could moan. "He will; He will," cried Towton, riding under spur and whip with a mad joy in the adventure, perilous as it was. "He will save the innocent and punish the guilty. Never fear, never fear, my darling." On roared the enormous body of water, curling like a mighty wave crested with foam and glistening like a colossal jewel in the serene sunshine. It passed with a hoarse triumphant screaming over the fated village, and in a single moment Bowderstyke was not. Bearing _débris_ and bodies of cattle and men, women and children on its breast, the water rolled majestically on its destroying way. Like a wall of steel it stood up, stretching from wall to wall of the valley, and before it tore the terrified horse, warned by its instinct of rapidly approaching danger. "We are lost! we are lost!" screamed Ida, hiding her face on Towton's shoulder. "We can never escape. It's a mile further." "There's a crack--a path--a break in the precipice," panted the man, almost despairing of saving what he loved best in the world. "If we can gain that we can scramble up, and--and---- Great God! How it travels!"