At length a loud continuous yell echoed along the hillside. The noise increased--the rushing sound came stronger and stronger the river rose higher, and roared louder; it overleaped the lintel of the door--the fire on the floor hissed for a moment, and then expired in smouldering wreaths of white smoke--the discoloured torrent gurgled into the chapel, and reached the altar-piece; and while the cries from the hillside were highest, and bitterest, and most despairing, it suddenly filled the chapel to the top of the low doorpost; and although the large tapers which had been lit near the altar-piece were as yet unextinguished, like meteors sparkling on a troubled sea, all was misery and consternation. “Have patience, and be composed, now,” shouted Don Ricardo. “If it increases, we can escape through the apertures here, behind the altar piece, and from thence to the high ground beyond. The heavy rain has loosened the soil on the opposite bank, and it has slid into the river course, negro houses and all. But be composed, my dears nothing supernatural in all this; and rest assured, although the river has unquestionably been forced from its channel, that there is no danger, if you will only maintain your self-possession.” And there we were--an inhabitant of a cold climate cannot go along with me in the description. We were all alarmed, but we were not chilled cold is a great daunter of bravery. At New Orleans, the black regiments, in the heart of the forenoon, were really the most efficient corps of the army; but in the morning, when the hoarfrost was on the long wire-grass, they were but as a broken reed. “Him too cold for brave today,” said the sergeant of the grenadier company of the West India regiment, which was brigaded in the ill-omened advance, when we attacked New Orleans; but here, having heat, and seeing none of the women egregiously alarmed, we all took heart of grace, and really there was no quailing amongst us. Senora Campana and her two nieces, Senora Cangrejo and her angelic daughter, had all betaken themselves to a sort of seat, enclosing the altar in a semicircle, with the pea soup-coloured water up to their knees. Not a word--not an exclamation of fear escaped from them, although the gushing eddies from the open door showed that the soil from the opposite hill was fast settling down, and usurping the former channel of the river. “All very fine this to read of,” at last exclaimed Aaron Bang. “Zounds, we shall be drowned. Look out, Transom; Tom Cringle, look out; for my part, I shall dive through the door, and take my chance.” “No use in that,” said Don Ricardo; “the two round openings there at the west end of the chapel, open on a dry shelf, from which the ground slopes easily upward to the house; let us put the ladies through them, and then we males can shift for ourselves as we best may.”