r Desdemona!
The curtain was rising early on the tragedy which Bachelder foresaw.
Already the glamour was falling from Paul to the tropics, where it
rightfully belonged; this morning she was living her bitter hour,
fighting down the premonition of a fatal mistake.

What with her thoughtful pauses, she made but a slow toilet, and when
the last rebellious curl had been coaxed to its place behind her small
ear, she turned, sighing, to the window. One glance, and she started
back, pale, clutching her hands. A rocky snout, thrusting far out into
the belly of the river's great bow, the Promontory stood high above the
ordinary flood level. Once, in far-away Aztec times, a Tewana tradition
had it that a cloudburst in the rains had swept it clear of houses, and
now Time's slow cycle had brought the same deadly coincidence. Where,
last night, a hundred lights had flickered below her windows, a boil of
yellow waters spread, cutting off her house, the last and highest, from
the mainland. Black storm had drowned the cries of fleeing householders.
The flood's mighty voice, bellowing angrily for more victims as it
swallowed house after house, had projected but a faint echo into her
dreams. Now, however, she remembered that Carmencita, her new maid, had
failed to bring in the morning coffee.

Wringing her hands and loudly lamenting the deadly fear that made her
forget her mistress, Carmencita, poor girl, was in the crowd that was
helping Paul and Bachelder to launch a freight canoe. When Paul--who had
ridden in early from the little village, where he had been
storm-stayed--had tried to impress a crew, the peon boatman had sworn
volubly that no pole would touch bottom and that one might as well try
to paddle the town as a heavy canoe against such a flood. But when
Bachelder stepped in and manned the big sweep, a half-dozen followed.
Notwithstanding, their river wisdom proved. Paddling desperately, they
gained no nearer than fifty yards to the pale face at the window.

"Don't be afraid!" Bachelder shouted, as they swept by. "We'll get you
next time!"

If the walls did not melt? Already the flood was licking with hungry
tongues the adobe bricks where the plaster had bulged and fallen, and an
hour would fly while they made a landing and dragged the canoe back for
another cast. The boatmen knew! Their faces expressed, anticipated that
which happened as they made the landing half a mile below. Paul saw it
first. Through the swift passage