houses must have crumbled.

"We are moving," murmured Rose, who clung to the tiles.

And we all experienced the effect of rolling, as if the roof had become
detached and turned into a raft. The swift currents seemed to be drifting us
away. Then, when we looked at the church clock, immovable opposite us, the
dizziness ceased; we found ourselves in the same place in the midst of the
waves.

Then the water began an attack. Until then the stream had followed the street;
but the debris that encumbered it deflected the course. And when a drifting
object, a beam, came within reach of the current, it seized it and directed
it against the house like a battering-ram. Soon ten, a dozen, beams were
attacking us on all sides. The water roared. Our feet were spattered with
foam. We heard the dull moaning of the house full of water. There were moments
when the attacks became frenzied, when the beams battered fiercely; and then
we thought that the end was near, that the walls would open and deliver us to
the river.

Gaspard had risked himself upon the edge of the roof. He had seized a rafter
and drawn it to him.

"We must defend ourselves," he cried.

Jacques, on his side, had stopped a long pole in its passage. Pierre helped
him. I cursed my age that left me without strength, as feeble as a child.
But the defense was organized--a drill between three men and a river. Gaspard,
holding his beam in readiness, awaited the driftwood that the current sent
against us, and be stopped it a short distance from the walls. At times the