g the sounds of
terror and confusion that came up from the story below--the groaning and
crying of men locked up in their cells; the calling and shouting of
warden and watchmen, rushing from corridor to corridor to release the
prisoners from their imminent peril; the clattering of feet, the
mingling of voices; in short, all the discordant notes that go to make
up the infernal concert of a crowd surprised and maddened by sudden and
general disaster.

There was also another reason why Miss Tabby's cries for help could not
be heard. Sybil Berners was the one solitary prisoner in this long and
remote corridor. Her door was barred and bolted fast, and it was not
deemed necessary to leave a night watch on duty near it. Thus, if they
should happen to be forgotten in the general panic, they would certainly
be drowned; for even if the thunder of waters, and the shouting of men,
and crashing of timbers, had been less deafening and distracting, Miss
Tabby's voice would still have failed to reach the ears of the distant
turnkeys.

From her fruitless efforts at the barred door, she rushed in
desperation to the grated window. With a fearful shriek she threw her
hands to her head, and rushed away again. The surrounding waters had
risen within a foot of the window sill! She filled the air of the cell
with her shrieks, as she rushed madly about from wall to wall, like a
frenzied screaming macaw, beating itself against the bars of its cage.

"To lie drownded here in the cell like a cat in a tub! To be drownded
like a cat in a tub!" was the burden of her death song.

And through all this Sybil slept the sleep of coma.

Suddenly the young babe awoke and added its shrill and feeble pipes to
the horrible uproar.

The old maid had all a mother's tenderness in her heart. In the midst of
her own agony of terror she ceased to scream, and went and took the babe
and cried gently over its fate, murmuring:

"Only a few hours old, and to die in this horrible den, my babe! Oh, my
babe! And you not even baptized! Oh, my goodness, not even baptized!
What shall I do? Oh! what shall I do? Let you die without baptism? Oh,
no, no! I never did baptize a child in my life, which I know I'm all
unworthy to do it! But--but, I know the church allows any one to
christen a child in danger of death. And so, my baby! Oh! my poor baby!"
And her voice broke down in tears as she bore the child to a table where
there was a pitcher of water.

Very humbly and rev