Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/272

246 the children crept, carefully listening and waiting before they entered any door. But the house was plainly deserted, except for  themselves, and in a short time they abandoned all caution, rollicking about in their  new freedom like a couple of three-year-olds! Theirs, they soon discovered, were the only other bedrooms on that floor, and of course  the only ones with barred windows. Two other large apartments occupied the remaining space, one evidently used as a storeroom,  the other as a granary. Both had large, open windows through which it would be  easy to pass.

For a long time they stood at one of these windows, watching the strange sight outside. The water swept by from the ocean inward with a rapid current, bearing on its surface  every imaginable article that could float. Boxes, barrels, furniture of every description, parts of houses, here and there a struggling cow or pig, and not infrequently