Cameron of Lochiel

CHAPTER IV.

THE BREAKING UP OF THE ICE

On entendit du côté de la mer un bruit epouvantable, comme si des torrents d'eau, mêlés à des tonnerres, eussent roulé du haut des montagnes; tout le monde s'écria: voilà l'ouragan.

Les vents et les vagues sont toujours du côté du plus habile nageur.

The travelers merrily continued their journey. The day drew to a close, and they kept on for a time by starlight. At length the moon rose and shone far over the still bosom of the Saint Lawrence. At the sight of her, Jules broke out into rhapsodies, and cried:

"I feel myself inspired, not by the waters of Hippocrene, which I have never tasted and which, I trust, I never shall taste, but by the kindly juice of Bacchus, dearer than all the fountains in the world, not even excepting the limpid wave of Parnassus. Hail to thee, fair moon! Hail to thee, thou silvern lamp, that lightest the steps of two men free as the children of our mighty forests, two men but now escaped from the shackles of college! How many times, O moon, as thy pale rays pierced to my lonely couch, how many times have I longed to break my bonds and mingle with the joyous throngs at balls and routs, while a harsh and inexorable decree condemned me to a sleep which I abhorred! Ah, how many times, O moon, have I sighed to traverse, mounted upon thy crescent at the risk of breaking my neck, the regions thou wast illuminating in thy stately course, even though it should take me to another hemisphere! Ah, how many times – "

"Ah, how many times in thy life hast thou talked nonsense!" exclaimed Archie. "But, since frenzy is infectious, listen now to a true poet, and abase thyself, proud spirit. O moon, thou of the threefold essence, thou whom the poets of old invoked as Artemis the Huntress, how sweet it must be to thee to forsake the dark realms of Pluto, and not less the forests wherein, with thy baying pack, thou raisest a din enough to deafen all the demons of Canada! How sweet it must be to thee, O moon, to journey now in tranquil dominance, in stupendous silence, the ethereal spaces of heaven! Repent of thy work, I beseech thee! Restore the light of reason to this poor afflicted one, my dearest friend, who – "

"O Phoebe, patron of fools," interrupted Jules, "not for my friend have I any prayer to make thee. Thou art all guiltless of his infirmity, for the mischief was done – "

"I say, gentlemen," exclaimed José, "when you are done your conversation with my lady moon – I don't know how you find so much to say to her – would it please you to notice what a noise they are making in St. Thomas yonder?"

All listened intently. It was the church bell pealing wildly.

"It is the Angelus," exclaimed Jules D'Haberville.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed José, "the Angelus at eight o'clock in the evening."

"Then it's a fire," said Archie.

"But we don't see any flames," answered José. "Whatever it is let's make haste. There is something unusual going on yonder."

Driving as fast as they could, half an hour later they entered the village of St. Thomas. All was silence. The village appeared deserted. Only the dogs, shut up in some of the houses, were barking madly. But for the noise of the curs they might have thought themselves transported into that city which we read of in the Arabian Nights whose inhabitants had all been turned into marble.

Our travelers were on the point of entering the church, the bell of which was still ringing, when they noticed a light and heard shouts from the bank by the rapids near the manor house. Thither they made their way at full speed.

It would take the pen of a Cooper or a Chateaubriand to paint the scene that met their eyes on the bank of South River.

Captain Marcheterre, an old sailor of powerful frame, was returning to the village toward dusk at a brisk pace, when he heard out on the river a noise like some heavy body falling into the water, and immediately afterward the groans and cries of some one appealing for help. It was a rash habitant named Dumais, who, thinking the ice yet sufficiently firm, had ventured upon it with his team, about a dozen rods southwest of the town. The ice had split up so suddenly that his team vanished in the current. The unhappy Dumais, a man of great activity, had just succeeded in springing from the sled to a stronger piece of ice, but the violence of the effort had proved disastrous; catching his foot in a crevice, he had snapped his leg at the ankle like a bit of glass.

Marcheterre, who knew the dangerous condition of the ice, which was split in many places, shouted to him not to stir, and that he was going to bring him help. He ran at once to the sexton, telling him to ring the alarm while he was routing out the nearest neighbors. In a moment, all was bustle and confusion. Men ran hither and thither without accomplishing anything. Women and children began to cry. Dogs began to howl, sounding every note of the canine gamut; so that the captain, whose experience pointed him out as the one to direct the rescue, had great difficulty in making himself heard.

However, under the directions of Marcheterre, some ran for ropes and boards while others stripped the fences and wood-piles of their cedar and birch bark to make torches. The scene grew more and more animated, and by the light of fifty torches shedding abroad their fitful glare the crowd spread along the river bank to the spot pointed out by the old sailor.

Dumais waited patiently enough for the coming of help. As soon as he could make himself heard he implored them to hurry, for he was beginning to hear under the ice low grumbling sounds which seemed to come from far off toward the river's mouth.

"There's not a moment to lose, my friends," exclaimed the old captain, "for that is a sign the ice is going to break up."

Men less experienced than he wished immediately to thrust out upon the ice their planks and boards without waiting to tie them together; but this he forbade, for the ice was already full of cracks, and moreover the ice cake which supported Dumais was isolated, having on the one side the shattered surface where the horse had been engulfed, and on the other a large air-hole which cut off all approach. Marcheterre, who knew that the breaking up was not only inevitable, but to be expected at any moment, was unwilling to risk the life of so many people without taking every precaution that his experience could dictate.

Some thereupon with hatchets began to notch the planks and boards; some tied them together end to end; some, with the captain at their head, dragged them out on the ice, while others were pushing from the bank. This improvised bridge was not more than fifty feet from the bank when the old sailor cried: "Now, boys, let some strong active fellows follow me at a distance of ten feet from one another, and let the rest keep pushing as before!"

Marcheterre was closely followed by his son, a young man in the prime of life, who, knowing his father's boldness, kept within reach in order to help him in case of need, for lugubrious mutterings, the ominous forerunners of a mighty cataclysm, were making themselves heard beneath the ice. But every one was at his post and every one doing his utmost; those who broke through, dragged themselves out by means of the floating bridge, and, once more on the solid ice, resumed their efforts with renewed zeal. Two or three minutes more and Dumais would be saved.

The two Marcheterres, the father ahead, were within about a hundred feet of the wretched victim of his own imprudence, when a subterranean thunder, such as precedes a strong shock of earthquake, seemed to run the whole length of South River. This subterranean sound was at once followed by an explosion like the discharge of a great piece of artillery. Then rose a terrible cry. "The ice is going! the ice is going! save yourselves!" screamed the crowd on shore.

Indeed the ice cakes were shivering on all sides under the pressure of the flood, which was already invading the banks. Then followed dreadful confusion. The ice cakes turned completely over, climbed upon each other with a frightful grinding noise, piled themselves to a great height, then sank suddenly and disappeared beneath the waves. The planks and boards were tossed about like cockle-shells in an ocean gale. The ropes and chains threatened every moment to give away.

The spectators, horror-stricken at the sight of their kinsfolk exposed to almost certain destruction, kept crying: "Save yourselves! save yourselves!" It would have been indeed tempting Providence to continue any longer the rash and unequal struggle with the flood.

Marcheterre, however, who seemed rather inspired than daunted by the appalling spectacle, ceased not to shout: "Forward boys! forward, for God's sake!"

This old sea-lion, ever cool and unmoved when on the deck of his reeling ship and directing a manœuvre on whose success the lives of all depended, was just as calm in the face of a peril which froze the boldest hearts. Turning round, he perceived that, with the exception of his son and Joncas, one of his sailors, the rest had all sought safety in a headlong flight. "Oh, you cowards, you cowards!" he cried.

He was interrupted by his son, who, seeing him rushing to certain death, seized him and threw him down on a plank, where he held him some moments in spite of the old man's mighty struggles. Then followed a terrible conflict between father and son. It was filial love against that sublime self-abnegation, the love of humanity.

The old man, by a tremendous effort, succeeded in throwing himself off the plank, and he and his son rolled on to the ice, where the struggle was continued fiercely. At this crisis, Joncas, leaping from plank to plank, from board to board, came to the young man's assistance.

The spectators, who from the shore lost nothing of the heart-rending scene, in spite of the water already pursuing them, made haste to draw in the ropes, and the united efforts of a hundred brawny arms were successful in rescuing the three heroes. Scarcely, indeed, had they reached a place of safety, when the great sheet of ice, which had hitherto remained stationary in spite of the furious attacks of the enemy assailing it on all sides, groaning, and with a slow majesty of movement, began its descent toward the falls.

All eyes were straightway fixed upon Dumais. He was a brave man. Many a time had he proved his courage upon the enemies of his country. He had even faced the most hideous of deaths, when, bound to a post, he was on the point of being burned alive by the Iroquois, which he would have been but for the timely aid of his friends the Melicites. Now he was sitting on his precarious refuge calm and unmoved as a statue of death. He made some signs toward the shore, which the spectators understood as a last farewell to his friends. Then, folding his arms, or occasionally lifting them toward heaven, he appeared to forget all earthly ties and to prepare himself for passing the dread limits which divide man from the eternal.

Once safely ashore, the captain displayed no more of his anger. Regaining his customary coolness he gave his orders calmly and precisely.

"Let us take our floating bridge," said he, "and follow yonder sheet of ice down river."

"What is the use?" cried some who appeared to have had experience. "The poor fellow is beyond the reach of help."

"There's one chance yet, one little chance of saving him," said the old sailor, giving ear to certain sounds which he heard far off to the southward, "and we must be ready for it. The ice is on the point of breaking up in the St. Nicholas, which, as you know, is very rapid. The violence of the flood at that point is likely to crowd the ice of South River over against our shore; and what's more, we shall have no reason to reproach ourselves."

It fell out as Captain Marcheterre predicted. In a moment or two there was a mighty report like a peal of thunder; and the St. Nicholas, bursting madly from its fetters, hurled itself upon the flank of the vast procession of ice floes which, having hitherto encountered no obstacle, were pursuing their triumphant way to the St. Lawrence. It seemed for a moment that the fierce and swift attack, the sudden thrust, was going to pile the greater part of the ice cakes upon the other shore as the captain hoped. The change it wrought was but momentary, for the channel getting choked there was an abrupt halt, and the ice cakes, piling one upon another, took the shape of a lofty rampart. Checked by this obstacle, the waves spread far beyond both shores and flooded the greater part of the village. This sudden deluge, driving the spectators from the banks, destroyed the last hope of poor Dumais.

The struggle was long and obstinate between the angry element and the obstacle which barred its course; but at length the great lake, ceaselessly fed by the main river and the tributaries, rose to the top of the dam, whose foundations it was at the same time eating away from beneath. The barrier, unable to resist the stupendous weight, burst with a roar that shook both banks. As South River widens suddenly below its junction with the St. Nicholas, the unchained mass darted down stream like an arrow, and its course was unimpeded to the cataract.

Dumais had resigned himself to his fate. Calm amid the tumult, his hands crossed upon his breast, his eyes lifted heavenward, he seemed absorbed in contemplation.

The spectators crowded toward the cataract to see the end of the tragedy. Numbers, roused by the alarm bell, had gathered on the other shore and had supplied themselves with torches by stripping off the bark from the cedar rails. The dreadful scene was lighted as if for a festival.

One could see in the distance the long, imposing structure of the manor house, to the southwest of the river. It was built on the top of a knoll overlooking the basin and ran parallel to the falls. About a hundred feet from the manor house rose the roof of a saw mill, the sluice of which was connected with the fall itself. Two hundred feet from the mill, upon the crest of the fall, were sharply outlined the remnants of a little island upon which, for ages, the spring floods had spent their fury. Shorn of its former size – for it had once been a peninsula – the islet was not now more than twelve feet square.

Of all the trees that had once adorned the spot there remained but a single cedar. This veteran, which for so many years had braved the fury of the equinoxes and the ice floods of South River, had half given way before the relentless assaults. Its crown hung sadly over the abyss in which it threatened soon to disappear. Several hundred feet from this islet stood a grist mill, to the northwest of the fall.

Owing to a curve in the shore, the tremendous mass of ice which, drawn by the fall, was darting down the river with frightful speed, crowded all into the channel between the islet and the flour mill, the sluice of which was demolished in a moment. Then the ice cakes, piling themselves against the timbers to the height of the roof, ended by crushing the mill itself as if it had been a house of cards. The ice having taken this direction, the channel between the saw mill and the island was comparatively free.

The crowd kept running along the bank and watching with horrified interest the man whom nothing short of a miracle could save from a hideous death. Indeed, up to within about thirty feet of the island, Dumais was being carried farther and farther from his only hope of rescue, when an enormous ice cake, dashing down with furious speed, struck one corner of the piece on which he was sitting, and diverted it violently from its course. It wheeled upon the little island and came in contact with the ancient cedar, the only barrier between Dumais and the abyss. The tree groaned under the shock; its top broke off and vanished in the foam. Relieved of this weight, the old tree recovered itself suddenly, and made ready for one more struggle against the enemies it had so often conquered.

Dumais, thrown forward by the unexpected shock, clasped the trunk of the cedar convulsively with both arms. Supporting himself on one leg, he clung there desperately while the ice swayed and cracked and threatened every instant to drag him from his frail support.

Nothing was lacking to the lurid and dreadful scene. The hurrying torches on the shores threw a grim light on the ghastly features and staring eyes of the poor wretch thus hanging by a hair above the gulf of death. Unquestionably Dumais was brave, but in this position of unspeakable horror he lost his self-control.

Marcheterre and his friends, however, still cherished a hope of saving him.

Descrying on the shore near the saw mill two great pieces of squared timber, they dragged these to a rock which projected into the river about two hundred feet above the fall; to each of these timbers they attached a cable and launched them forth, in hopes that the current would carry them upon the island. Vain attempt! They could not thrust them far enough out into the stream, and the timbers, anchored, as it were, by the weight of the chains, kept swaying mid way between shore and island.

It seemed impossible to add to the awful sublimity of the picture, but on the shore was being enacted a most impressive scene. It was religion preparing the Christian to appear before the dread tribunal; it was religion supporting him to endure the final agony.

The parish priest, who had been at a sick bed, was now upon the scene. He was a tall old man of ninety. The burden of years had not availed to bend this modern Nestor, who had baptized and married all his parishioners, and had buried three generations of them. His long hair, white as snow and tossed by the night wind, made him look like a prophet of old. He stood erect on the shore, his hands stretched out to the miserable Dumais. He loved him; he had christened him; he had prepared him for that significant rite of the Catholic Church which seems suddenly to touch a child's nature with something of the angelic. He loved him also as the husband of an orphan girl whom the old priest had brought up. He loved him for the sake of his two little ones, who were the joy of his old age. Standing there on the shore, like the Angel of Pity, he not only administered the consolations of his sacred office, but spoke to him tender words of love. He promised him that the seigneur would never let his family come to want. Finally, seeing the tree yield more and more before every shock, he cried in a loud voice, broken with sobs: "My son, make me the 'Act of Contrition' and I will give you absolution." A moment later, in a voice that rang clear above the roaring of the flood and of the cataract, the old priest pronounced these words: "My son, in the name of God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, by whose authority I speak, in the name of the Holy Ghost, your sins are forgiven you. Amen." And all the people sobbed, "Amen."