There was great
excitement to ascertain if the report was correct. Thank God! he spoke
words of truth. The gauge actually marked a decrease of no less than two
inches in the height of the river, and this decrease had taken place in
the space of half an hour. The river had attained the highest point when
the danger-signal was fired. It had never risen beyond, though the level
had been stationary for some time.
Every one was surprised at the rapid fall of the Danube; it was
difficult to account for. It soon came to be remarked that the vast
volume of water was visibly moved onward. If the river was flowing on
its way, that meant the salvation of the city--the fact was most
important. I myself saw a dark mass--a piece of wreckage, probably, or
the carcass of an animal--pass with some rapidity across a track of
light reflected on the water. It was difficult to make out anything
clearly in the darkness, but I felt sure the object, whatever it was,
was borne onward by the stream.
It was a generally-expressed opinion that something must have happened
farther down the river to relieve the pent-up waters. Very shortly
official news arrived, and spread like wildfire, that the Danube had
made a way for itself right across the island of Csepel into the
Soroksar arm of the river.
Csepel is an island some thirty miles long, situated a short distance
below Pest. The engineering works for the regulation of the Danube had,
as I said before, closed this Soroksar branch, and the river, in
reasserting its right of way to the sea, caused a terrible calamity to
the villages on the Csepel Island, but thereby Hungary's capital was
saved.
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