"I don't see how she got into that scrape, unless she was looking for a night's lodging," said Washburn. "That building is big enough to be seen in the dark."
"Of course Captain Blastblow did not intend to run into it," I added. "Probably he had not time to get out of the way when he first saw it."
"But it seems to me I should not go far with such a load before I shook it off."
"But don't you see that he can't pull out of the house?" demanded Owen. "He is stuck fast in her side."
"They have axes on board the Islander; and I don't think it would take our crew long to cut her out of that hole," added Washburn. "Why does she keep whistling? Her captain can imagine that we have not steam enough to work the Sylvania in such a current."
"I say, Washy, have you ever been down the Danube?" asked Owen.
"I never have been. I was never in Europe," replied the mate.
"I should say this current is quite as swift as that of the Danube at Vienna; and it makes seven miles an hour there."
"The ordinary current of the Mississippi is about five miles an hour, and in such a freshet it must be as much as seven."
"An inundation; an overflow of the water; a flood; a----"
"Cut it short! I understand it perfectly. I never heard it called a freshet before. Has it anything to do with the fact that this is fresh water, Washy?"
"I don't think it has, though I never heard of such a thing as a freshet in salt water, which could not very well be, since a freshet is caused by heavy rains and the melting of the snow," replied Washburn. "You never heard of a freshet before! Where have you been all your life?"
"That's an American word, Mr. Washburn," interposed my father. "I never heard it except in this country."
At this moment Mr. Tiffany and his daughter joined us in the pilot-house, after asking if they might come in. I gave them chairs and explained to them the rather ludicrous situation of the Islander. All hands were on the forecastle except the chief engineer and Landy Perkins. I ordered a Bengola to be burned on the top-gallant forecastle to enable them to see the Islander and its odd burden.
"Mr. Brickland says he has steam enough," said Landy Perkins, reporting to me at the pilothouse.
"All right," I replied. "Buck, cast off the hawser, when I bring her up to it."