There was no need of the bells to rouse Kaskaskia; they served rather as
sounding buoys in a suddenly created waterway. Peggy Morrison had come
to stay all night with Angelique Saucier. The two girls were shut in
their bedroom, and Angelique's black maid was taking the pins from
Peggy's hair, when the stone house received its shock, and shuddered
like a ship. Screams were heard from the cabins. Angelique threw the
sashes open, and looked into storm and darkness; yet the lightning
showed her a driving current of water combed by pickets of the garden
fence. It washed over the log steps, down which some of her father's
slaves were plunging from their doors, to recoil and scramble and mix
their despairing cries with the wakening clamor of bells.
Their master shouted encouragement to them from the back gallery.
Angelique's candles were blown out by the wind when she and Peggy tried
to hold them for her father. The terrified maid crouched down in a
helpless bunch on the hall floor, and Madame Saucier herself brought the
lantern from the attic.
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