Thus freighted, the yawl pushed off, at length, into the steely rain, the white foam, and the surging, tawny currents of the river. All looked back at the sand-bar, doubtless, with some apprehensive regret. The sight of the stanch Captain on the deck waving his farewell was not calculated to dispel anxiety. The sand-bar, too, was big,--on board they had scarcely realized its extent. In comparison with the yawl it seemed very solid, continental. They sheered off cautiously from it lest the yawl, too, go aground on some submerged and unsuspected process of land building. It was obviously safer in the middle of the river, despite the menacing aspect of the swift tumultuous current, lashed into foaming swirls by the blast. The tremendous impetus of the flow was demonstrated by the speed of the yawl; in one moment the steamer had disappeared, its great white bulk, lifted high on the sand-bar, showed like a mirage through a sudden parting of the dashing torrents, then fell astern to be glimpsed no more. When the yawl began to run precipitately toward the bank there was a general outcry of fear, but the mate, who was navigating the little craft, explained that it must needs go with the sweep of the current, which now hugged the shore, for the strength of his crew could not make headway against it, heavily laden as the yawl was. From this proximity to the land the voyagers could mark the evidences of the fury of the hurricane. Its track through the woods was near a hundred yards wide, in almost a perfectly straight line, and in this avenue the trees were felled, the ground cleared, the levee laid flat. It was impossible to say what dwellings or farm-buildings shared the disaster, for no vestige was left to tell the tale. As the yawl fared onward it encountered one of the great monarchs of the woods, tossed into the river by the gusts that had uprooted it and now borne swiftly on by the combined force of the wind and the current. It required all the strength of the oarsmen to hold back and give precedence to this gigantic flotsam, lest some uncovenanted swirl of the waters fling it with all its towering intricacies of boughs upon the boat, and, hopelessly entangling it, thrash out the life of every creature on board. For the wind was rife in its branches and thus contorted its course. It tossed them high; whistled and screamed madly among them, and the yawl, following reluctantly in the rear, was witness of all the fantastic freaks of these wild gambols of the gusts. This unlucky blockade of their course gave rise to some discussion between the mate and the passengers, and Floyd-Rosney would fain seek to pass the obstruction by a spurt of rowing to one side. “I am not well acquainted with the current just along here,” said the mate, “but if it should make in toward the land with us between it and the bank we would be flailed alive and drowned besides.”