The floods were out. Far as the bound
Of sight was one stupendous round
Of flat and sluggish crawling water!
As, from a slowly drowning rise,
She looked abroad with startled eyes,
The engineer's intrepid daughter.
Far as her straining eyes could see,
The seething, swoolen Tombigbee
Outspread his turbulent yellow tide;
His angry currents swirled and surged
O'er leagues of fertile lands submerged,
And ruined hamlets, far and wide.
Along a swell of higher ground,
Still, like a gleaming serpent, wound
The heavy graded iron trail;
But, inch by inch, the overflow
Dragged down the road bed, till the slow
Back-water crept across the rail.
And where the ghostly trestle spanned
A stretch of marshy bottom-land,
The stealthy under current gnawed
At sunken pile, and massive pier,
And the stout bridge hung airily where
She sullen dyke lay deep and broad.
Above the hollow, droning sound
Of waves that filled the watery round,
She heard a distant shout and din--
The levees of the upper land
Had crumbled like a wall of sand,
And the wild floods were pouring in!
She saw the straining dyke give way--
The quaking trestle reel and sway.
Yet hold together, bravely, still!
She saw the rushing waters drown
The piers, while ever sucking down
The undermined and treacherous "fill!"
Her strong heart hammered in her breast,
As o'er a distant woody crest
A dim gray plume of vapor trailed;
And nearer, clearer, by and by,
Like the faint echo of a cry,
A warning whistle shrilled and wailed!
Her frightened gelding reared and plunged,
As the doomed trestle rocked and lunged--
The keen lash scored his silken hide:
"Come, Bayard! We must reach the bridge
And cross to yonder higher ridge--
For thrice an hundred lives we ride!"
She stooped and kissed his tawny mane,
Sodden with flecks of froth and rain;
Then put him at the surging flood!
Girth deep the dauntless gelding sank,
The tide hissed round his smoking flank,
But straight for life or death she rode!
The wide black heavens yawned again,
Down came the torrent rushing rain--
The icy river clutched her!
Shrill in her ears the waters sang,
Strange fires from the abysses sprang,
The sharp sleet stung like whip and spur!
Her yellow hair, blown wild and wide,
Streamed like a meteor o'er the tide;
Her set white face yet whiter grew,
As lashed by furious flood and rain,
Still for the bridge, with might and main,
Her gallant horse swam, straight and true!
They gained the track, and slowly crept
Timber by timber, torrents swept,
Across the boiling hell of water--
Till past the torn and shuddering bridge
He bore her to the safer ridge,
The engineer's intrepid daughter!
The night was falling wild and black,
The waters blotted out the track;
She gave her flying horse free rein,
For full a dreadful mile away
The lonely wayside station lay,
And hoarse above his startled neigh
She heard the thunder of the train!
"What if they meet this side the goal?"
She thought with sick and shuddering soul;
For well she knew what doom awaited
A fell mischance--a step belated--
The grinding wheels, the yawning dyke--
Sure death for her--for them--alike!
Like danger-lamps her blue eyes glowed,
As thro' the whirling gloom she rode,
Her laboring breath drawn sharply in;
Pitted against yon rushing wheels
Were tireless grit and trusty heels,
And with God's favor they might win!
And soon along the perilous line
Flamed out the lurid warning sign,
While round her staggering horse the crowd
Surged with wild cheers and plaudits loud.--
And this is how, thro' flood and rain,
Brave Kate McCarthy saved the train!