L I I I
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..The Filibusters of Venezuela..
• , $
÷ Or the l'rials of a Spanish Oirl. ÷
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• Copyrighted 1900 by Robert Bonner's Sons. •
• •
CHAPTER XXI.
A Rough Voyage.
An exclamation of alarm burst from
Jacinta when the sudden plunge of the
, flatboat gave indubitable evidence that
the rope had broken.
"We are afloat! We are afloat!"
"And rushing it,' said Medworth.
"Are you all right, Jack?" For so large
was the boat, and so dark the night,
that Arthur did not doubt that his
friend was somewhere on board. But
as no answer came to him out of the
darkness, his heart stood still with
horror.
"Jack," he shouted, "are you on the
boat?"
Loud as he shouted, no answer came
to his straining ears but the mocking
howl of the storm.
"Tempest is lost!" he exclaimed.
"My heavens! What shall we do
"What can we do, senor?" tearfully
asked Dona Maria. "it is enough to
drive one's senses from one. Is it not
terrific! Nothing ~an ~ave us in this
awful storm."
And, in truth, there was foundation
enough for her terror.
In the blackness of the night and in
the rush and swirl of the ,water the
great, clumsy flatboat turned and
twisted, groaned and creaked, now
lunging forward as if going over a ca-
taract, now swinging viciously against
a bit of high bank or a tree standing
deep in the water, but always bounding
off again to continue its fearful way.
At times it would not progress, but
would whirl round and round in the
grasp of a furious eddy; then, like a
wild beast released from its cage, it
would plunge on. It was never two
minutes the same, never for a moment
under the control of :~ught save that
overwhelming mass of water and the
Omnipotent hand that controls even
the torrents and the floods.
At the tremendous rate at which
they were being carried along they
swept past mile after mile of flooded
Ilanos, and their troubled minds did
not know or could not guess were they
were.
But the stanch old boat did not fail
them. It seemed every minute as if it
must go to pieces.
When the long, dreadful hours of the
night had passed, and the scarcely less
