ed on undisturbed, but suddenly she woke.
She fancied she heard in her sleep a frightful noise like the rumbling
of heavy thunder, a noise which mingled with the shrieks of the wind and
finally drowned them entirely. At first she thought she must be the
victim of some terrible dream. But the sound grew louder and louder.
This was no dream; it was reality. She sprang to her feet, seeking some
loophole of escape from the unknown peril that threatened her. Above the
tumult she could distinguish human cries. She thought these must come
from her pursuers. But no; these distant voices were calling for succor.
She caught up her child and ran from the cave. A grand but terrible
sight met her gaze and riveted her to the spot in motionless horror.

The Gardon had overflowed its banks. With the rapidity that
characterizes its sudden inundations and transforms this peaceful stream
into the most impetuous of torrents, the water had risen over the banks
that border it and flooded the fields, sweeping away everything that
stood in its path. This water now laved the feet of the young Bohemian;
and as far as the eye could reach she could see nothing but a mass of
boiling, turbulent waves, bearing on their crests floating fragments of
houses and furniture, as well as trees, animals and occasionally human
bodies. The cries she had heard came from some women who had been
overtaken by the torrent while engaged in washing their linen at the
river, and who had taken refuge upon a rock on the side of the now
inundated road.

The river continued to rise. This immense volume of water was vainly
seeking an outlet through the narrow defile formed by the hills and
which ordinarily sufficed for the bed of the Gardon; but, finding the
passage inadequate now, it dashed itself violently against the rocks and
against the supports of the aqueduct which haughtily defied the furious
flood; then, converted into a mass of seething foam, it returned over
the same road it had just traversed until it met the new waves that were
being constantly formed by the current. It was the shock of this meeting
that caused the noise which had roused Tiepoletta from her slumber. A
stormy sea could not have appeared more angry, or formed more formidable
billows. One might have called it a fragmentary episode of the universal
deluge.

Five minutes more than sufficed to give Tiepoletta an idea of the extent
of the inundation. She stood with wild eyes and unbound hair, the
p