every window in the Corso rattle
again. Once, twice, thrice the booming cannon roared out its terrible
warning. It was the appointed signal, and we all knew that now the
waters had risen so high that Old Buda and other low-lying districts
were in danger.

That was a terrible night. The general excitement was intense, and there
were few people, I imagine, in all Pest who slept quietly in their beds.
Every hour news came of the spread of the inundation. The waters were
pouring in behind Pest from the upper bend of the river. Matters looked
very serious indeed. All communication with the suburb of New Pest was
cut off by the inroads of the flood. The night, with its pall of
darkness, seemed interminable; but at length the morning came, and--God
help us!--what a sea of trouble the light revealed! Whole districts
under water; churches and palaces knee-deep in the flood; and above
Pest--a widespread lake creeping on over the vast plain.

The only news of the morning was a despairing telegram from Eresi that
the barrier of ice there was immovable. This meant, as I have said
before, that there was no release for the pent-up waters in the ordinary
course. The accumulated flood must swamp the capital, and that soon. The
river had ceased to flow past; it was no longer the "blue Danube"
running merrily its five miles an hour, but a dead sea, an inexorable
volume of water, slowly, silently creeping up to engulf us. Pest is a
city which literally has its foundations made on the sand; a portion of
it is built on the old bed of the Danube. Assuming a certain point as
zero, the official measurements were made from this, and notices were
published that if a maximum of twenty-five feet were attained by the
rising waters, then Pest must inevitably be flooded.

As evening came on, with the cloudy forecast of more rain, the gravest
anxiety was visible on the face of every soul of that vast multitude.
This anxiety was intensified when it was announced that the latest
measurement was twenty-four feet nine inches; and what was simply
appalling, that the register marked six inches rise in less than an
hour. It was clear to every one that the critical moment had arrived.
There was little to hope, and much to fear. Darkness fell upon as dismal
a scene as imagination could well conceive. If the water once overlapped
the embankment at the fruit-market, it must very soon pour in in vast
volume; for the streets there are considerably lower than the