behind them, repeating:

"The flood! The flood!"

The roar of the bursting dam was now in the ears of all the awakened
people of the valley. In three great explosions the weakened wall burst,
and the water roared through.

Spouting through the wrecked masonry, the boys could see it spread below
the barrier, half as high as the dam itself. It would sweep the narrow
valley clean of every small structure and of every living thing that
could not get out of its path.

Half a mile was small leeway; the flood would pour down upon the village
and the mills in two or three minutes. But the Navy boys in the big car
were flying over the road at a forty-mile-an-hour pace.

They could have easily escaped to the high ground on one side or the
other of the valley. There were many small farms down this river road,
however, and although the valley widened a good deal before the
outskirts of Seacove were reached, the flood might do a deal of damage
in the lower town unless the people there were warned.

At least, the automobile and its occupants made noise enough as they
flew along to arouse most people along the way to the menacing peril.
The explosion followed by the bursting of the dam had, in any case,
shaken the valley to the very sea itself.

They saw men, women and children run screaming from their houses and
mount through the fields toward the hilltops. Behind, the roar of the