"Well," said Mr. Tucker, "no precaution has been neglected in building this dam: provision has been made even for blowing up the waste-wear; a hole has been built in the masonry, and there's dry powder and a fuse kept at the valve-house. I'll blow up the waste-wear, though I think it needless. I am convinced that crack is above the level of the water in the reservoir."
This observation struck Ransome, and he asked if it could not be ascertained by measurement.
"Of course it can," said Tucker, "and I'll measure it as I come back."
He then started for the wear, and Carter accompanied him.
They crossed the embankment, and got to the wear.
Ives went home, and the workmen withdrew to the side, not knowing exactly what might be the effect of the explosion.
By-and-by Ransome looked up, and observed a thin sheet of water beginning to stream over the center of the embankment and trickle down: the quantity was nothing; but it alarmed him. Having no special knowledge on these matters, he was driven to comparisons; and it flashed across him that, when he was a boy, and used to make little mud-dams in April, they would resist the tiny stream until it trickled over them, and from that moment their fate was sealed.
Nature, he had observed, operates alike in small things and great, and that sheet of water, though thin as a wafer, alarmed him.
He thought it was better to give a false warning than withhold a true one; he ran to his horse, jumped on him, and spurred away.
His horse was fast and powerful, and carried him in three minutes back to Emden's farm. The farmer had gone to bed. Ransome knocked him up, and told him he feared the dam was going; then galloped on to Hatfield Mill. Here he found the miller and his family all gathered outside, ready for a start; one workman had run down from the reservoir.
"The embankment is not safe."
"So I hear. I'll take care of my flour and my folk. The mill will take care of itself." And he pointed with pride to the solid structure and granite pillars.
Ransome galloped on, shouting as he went.
The shout was taken up ahead, and he heard a voice crying in the night, "IT'S COMING! IT'S COMING!" This weird cry, which, perhaps, his own galloping and shouting had excited, seemed like an independent warning, and thrilled him to the bone. He galloped through Hatfield, shouting, "Save yourselves! Save yourselves!" and the people poured out, and ran for high ground, shrieking wildly; looking back, he saw the hill dotted with what he took for sheep at first, but it was the folk in their night-clothes.
He galloped on to Damflask, still shouting as he went.
At the edge of the hamlet, he found a cottage with no light in it; he dismounted and thundered at the door: "Escape for your lives! for your lives!"
A man called Hillsbro' Harry opened the window.
"The embankrncnt is going. Fly for your lives!"
"Nay," said the man, coolly, "Ouseley dam will brust noane this week," and turned to go to bed again.
He found Joseph Galton and another man carrying Mrs. Galton and her new-born child away in a blanket. This poor woman, who had sent her five children away on the faith of a dream, was now objecting, in a faint voice, to be saved herself from evident danger. "Oh, dear, dear! you might as well let me go down with the flood as kill me with taking me away."
Such was the sapient discourse of Mrs. Galton, who, half an hour ago, had been supernaturally wise and prudent. Go to, wise mother and silly woman; men will love thee none the less for the inequalities of thine intellect; and honest Joe will save thy life, and heed thy twaddle no more than the bleating of a lamb.
Ransome had not left the Galtons many yards behind him, when there was a sharp explosion heard up in the hills.
Ransome pulled up and said aloud, "It will be all right now, thank goodness! they have blown up the wear."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he heard a loud sullen roar, speedily followed by a tremendous hiss, and a rumbling thunder, that shook the very earth where he stood, two miles distant.
This is what had taken place since he left the reservoir, but ten minutes ago.
Mr. Tucker and Mr. Carter laid the gunpowder and the train, and lighted the latter, and came back across the middle of the embankment.
