Uncle Jack was right, for almost as he spoke we could hear voices shouting "rezzyvoyer;" and for the moment we forgot our own troubles in the thought of the horrors that must have taken place up the vale.
But we could not stay where we were, half suffocated by the steam that rose, and, opening the door, which broke away half-burned through, we stood once more in the long workshop, which seemed little changed, save that here and there a black chasm yawned in the floor, among which we had to thread our way to where the stout door had been.
That and the staircase were gone, so that our only chance was to descend by lowering ourselves and dropping to the ground.
Just then we heard the splashing of feet in the yard, and a voice we recognised as Pannell cried:
"Mebbe they"ve got away. Ahoy there, mesters! Mester Jacob!"
"Ahoy!" I shouted; and a ringing cheer went up from twenty throats.
"We"re all right," I cried, only nearly smothered. "Can you get a short ladder?"
"Ay, lad," cried another familiar voice; and another shouted, "Owd Jones has got one;" and I was sure it was Gentles who spoke.
"How"s the place, Pannell?" cried Uncle d.i.c.k, leaning out of one of the windows.
"So dark, mester, I can hardly see, but fire"s put right out, and these here buildings be aw reight, but wheer the smithies and furnace was is n.o.bbut ground."
"Swept away?"
"Pretty well burned through first, mester, and then the watter came and washed it all clear. Hey but theer"s a sight of mischief done, I fear."
A short ladder was soon brought, and the boxes and papers were placed in safety in a neighbouring house, after which in the darkness we tramped through the yard, to find that it was inches deep in mud, and that the flood had found our mill stout enough to resist its force; but the half-burned furnace-house, the smithies, and about sixty feet of tall stone wall had been taken so cleanly away that even the stones were gone, while the mill next to ours was cut right in two.
There was not a vestige of fire left, so, leaving our further inspection to be continued in daylight, we left a couple of men as watchers, and were going to join the hurrying crowd, when I caught Uncle d.i.c.k"s arm.
"Well?" he exclaimed.
"Did you see where those men went as they got off the raft?"
"They seemed to be climbing down into the hollow beside the river," he said:
"Yes," I whispered with a curious catching of the breath, "and then the flood came."
He gripped my hand, and stood thinking for a few moments.
"It is impossible to say," he cried at last. "But come along, we may be of some service to those in trouble."
In that spirit we went on down to the lower part of the town, following the course of the flood, and finding fresh horrors at every turn.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
EIGHT YEARS LATER.
Fancy the horrors of that night! The great dam about which one of my uncles had expressed his doubts when we visited it the previous year, and of which he had spoken as our engine, had given way in the centre of the vast earthen wall like a railway embankment. A little crack had grown and grown--the trickling water that came through had run into a stream, then into a river, and then a vast breach in the embankment was made, and a wall of water had rushed down the valley swiftly as a fast train, carrying destruction before it.
The ruin of that night is historical, and when after a few hours we made our way up the valley, it was to see at every turn the devastation that had been caused. Mills and houses had been swept away as if they had been corks, strongly-built works with ma.s.sive stone walls had crumbled away like cardboard, and their machinery had been carried down by the great wave of water, stones, gravel, and mud.
Trees had been lifted up by their roots; rows of cottages cut in half; banks of the valley carved out, and for miles and miles, down in the bottom by the course of the little river, the face of the country was changed. Here where a beautiful garden had stretched down to the stream was a bed of gravel and sand; there where verdant meadows had lain were sheets of mud; and in hundreds of places trees, plants, and the very earth had been swept clear away down to where there was only solid rock.
When we reached the great embankment the main part of the water was gone, and in the middle there was the huge gap through which it had escaped.
"Too much water for so frail a dam," said Uncle Jack sententiously.
"Boys, we must not bemoan our loss in the face of such a catastrophe as this."
We had no right, for to us the flood, exhausted and spread by its eight-mile race, had been our saving, the greater part of our destruction being by fire, for which we should have recompense; while for the poor creatures who had been in an instant robbed of home and in many cases of relatives, what recompense could there be!
The loss of life was frightful, and the scenes witnessed as first one poor creature and then another was discovered buried in sand and mud after being borne miles by the flood, are too painful to record.
Suffice it that the flood had swept down those eight miles of valley, doing incalculable damage, and leaving traces that remained for years.
The whole of the loss was never known, and till then people were to a great extent in ignorance of the power that water could exercise. In many cases we stood appalled at the changes made high up the valley, and the manner in which ma.s.ses of stonework had been swept along. Stone was plentiful in the neighbourhood and much used in building, and wherever the flood had come in contact with a building it was taken away bodily, to crumble up as it was borne along, and augment the power of the water, which became a wave charged with stones, ma.s.ses of rock, and beams of wood, ready to batter into nothingness every obstacle that stood in its way.
"It seems impossible that all this could be done in a few minutes," said Uncle d.i.c.k.
"No, not when you think of the power of water," said Uncle Jack quietly.
"Think of how helpless one is when bathing, against an ordinary wave.
Then think of that wave a million times the size, and tearing along a valley charged with _debris_, and racing at you as fast as a horse could gallop."
We came back from the scene of desolation ready to make light of our own trouble, and the way in which my uncles worked to help the sufferers down in the lower part of the town gave the finishing touches to the work of many months.
There was so much trouble in the town and away up the valley, so much suffering to allay, that the firing of our works by the despicable scoundrels who worked in secret over these misdeeds became a very secondary matter, and seemed to cause no excitement at all.
"But you must make a stir about this," said Mr Tomplin. "The villains who did that deed must be brought to justice. The whole affair will have to be investigated, and I"m afraid we shall have to begin by arresting that man of yours--the watcher Searby."
But all this was not done. Searby came and gave a good account of himself--how he had been deluded away, and then so beaten with sticks that he was glad to crawl home; and he needed no words to prove that he had suffered severely in our service.
"Let"s set the prosecution aside for the present," said Uncle Jack, "and repair damages. We can talk about that when the work is going again."
This advice was followed out, and the insurance company proving very liberal, as soon as they were satisfied of the place having been destroyed by fire, better and more available buildings soon occupied the position of the old, the machinery was repaired, and in two months the works were in full swing once more.
It might almost have been thought that the flood swept away the foul element that originated the outrages which had disgraced the place. Be that as it may, the burning of our works was almost the last of these mad attempts to stop progress and intimidate those who wished to improve upon the old style of doing things.
I talked to Pannell and Stevens about the fire afterwards and about having caught sight of three men landing from a raft and going down towards the river just before the flood came.
But they both tightened their lips and shook their heads. They would say nothing to the point.
Pannell was the more communicative of the two, but his remarks were rather enigmatical.
"Men jynes in things sometimes as they don"t like, my lad. Look here,"
he said, holding a glowing piece of steel upon his anvil and giving it a tremendous thump. "See that? I give that bit o" steel a crack, and it was a bad un, but I can"t take that back, can I?"
"No, of course not, but you can hammer the steel into shape again."
"That"s what some on us is trying to do, my lad, and best thing towards doing it is holding one"s tongue."