and fled for the hills. Along the
road was the wild stampede of the people, all straining for the hills,
pouring in a mad rush from the valley and the town. Behind them were the
still madder, swifter, more terrible waters, coming in sudden thuds, in
furious drives, eddying and sculping and rearing in an orgy or
remorseless and heartrending destruction. Down before that roaring
avalanche went walls and trees and buildings. The shepherd boy saw men
give up the struggle for escape, cowering by the roadside, and women,
turning from the race to the hills, rushed back to meet the oncoming
waters with arms outspread and insanity in their wild eyes.

Not a human creature escaped that night of wroth except the shepherd boy
and the damsel he carried in his arms. Every time the waters reached his
heels they reared up like great white horses and fell back, thus sparing
him. Three times did he look back at happenings in the town of the Seven
Sisters. The first time he looked back the water was up to the last
windows of houses that were three storeys high. All the belongings of
the householders were floating about, and people were sinking through
the water, their lives going out as swiftly as twinkling bubbles. In an
attic window he saw a young girl loosen her hair, she was singing a
song, preparing to meet death as if she were making ready for a lover. A
man at the top of a ladder was gulping whiskey from a bottle, and when
the water sprang at his throat he went down with a mad defiant cry. A
child ran out an open window, golden locks dancing about its pretty
head, as if it were running into a garden. There was another little
bubble in the moonlight.... The second time the shepherd boy looked back
the swallows were flying from their nests under the eaves of the houses,
for the water was now lapping them. An old woman was hobbling across a
roof on crutches. Men were drawing their bodies out of the chimney-pots.
A raft on which the Keeper's guard had put out slowly, like a live thing
lazily yawning and turning over on its side, sent them all into the
common doom. A man with a bag of gold clutched in his hand, stood
dizzily on the high gable of a bank, then, with a scream, tottered and
fell.... The third time the shepherd boy looked back nothing was to be
seen above the face of the water except the pinnacle of the watch tower
of the mansion, and standing upon it was the Keeper of the Key, his arms
outspread, his face upturned to the mo