ring him
back to reality.

"Your tiller there!" Cupido would shout, without, however, taking his
eyes from the water ahead. "Look out, Rafaelito, or we'll get smashed!"

The boat was indeed a good one, for any other, would long before have
come to grief in those rapids jammed with rocks and debris.

They were around the city in no time. Few lighted windows were now to be
seen. High, steep banks of slippery mud--quite unscalable--crested with
walls, were slipping past on either hand, with an occasional palisade,
the piles just emerging from the water. Somewhat ahead, the open river,
where the two arms that girt the Old City reunited in what was now a
vast lake!

The two men went on blindly. All normal landmarks were gone. The banks
had disappeared, and in the blackness, beyond the red circle of torch
light, they could make out only water and then more water--an immense
incessantly rolling sheet that was taking them they knew not where. From
time to time a black spot would show above the muddy surface; the crest
of some submerged canebrake; the top of a tree; a strange, fantastic
vegetation that seemed to be writhing in the gloom. The river, free now
from the gorges and shallows around the city, had ceased its roaring. It
seethed and swirled along in absolute silence, effacing all trace of the
land. The two men felt like a couple of shipwrecked sailors adrift on a
shoreless, sunless ocean, alone save for the reddish flame flickering at
the prow, and the submerged treetops that appeared and vanished rapidly.

"Better begin to row, Cupido," said Rafael. "The current is very strong.
We must be still in the river. Let's turn to the right and see if we can
get into the orchards."

The barber bent to the oars, and the boat, slowly, on account of the
current, came around and headed for a line of tree-tops that peered
above the surface of the flood like seaweed floating on the ocean.
Shortly the bottom began to scrape on invisible obstacles. Entanglements
below were clutching at the keel, and it took some effort occasionally
to get free. The lake was still dark and apparently shoreless, but the
current was not so strong and the surface had stopped rolling. The two
men knew they had reached dead water. What looked like dark, gigantic
mushrooms, huge umbrellas, or lustrous domes, caught the reflection of
the torch, at times. Those were orange-trees. The rescuers were in the
orchards. But in which? How find the way in the dark