something may occur to require the strength of two, instead of that of one, to overcome it.”
“You can go with me as far as the next island, if you will, where we shall be able to ascertain at once whether it be ice or water that separates us from the eastern shore. If the first, you can return as fast as possible for the ladies, while I look for a place to cross. I do not like the appearance of this dam, to be honest with you; and have great fears for those who are now in the sleigh.”
We were in the very act of moving away, when a loud, cracking noise, that arose within a few yards, alarmed us both; and running to the spot whence it proceeded, we saw that a large willow had snapped in two, like a pipe-stem, and that the whole barrier of ice was marching, slowly, but grandly, over the stump, crushing the fallen trunk and branches beneath its weight, as the slow-moving wheel of the loaded cart crushes the twig. Guert grasped my arm, and his fingers nearly entered the flesh, under his iron pressure.
“We must quit this spot—” he said firmly, “and at once. Let us go back to the sleigh.”
I did not know Guert’s intentions, but I saw it was time to act with decision. We moved swiftly down to the spot where we had left the sleigh; and the reader will judge of our horror, when we found it gone! The whole of the low point of the island where we had left it, was already covered with cakes of ice that were in motion, and which had doubtless swept off the sleigh during the few minutes that we had been absent! Looking around us, however, we saw an object on the river, a little distance below, that I fancied was the sleigh, and was about to rush after it, when a voice filled with alarm, took us in another direction. Mary Wallace came out from behind a tree, to which she had fled for safety, and seizing Guert’s arm, implored him not to quit her again.
“Whither has Anneke gone?” I demanded, in an agony I cannot describe—“I see nothing of Anneke!”
“She would not quit the sleigh,” answered Mary Wallace, almost panting for breath—“I implored—entreated her to follow me—said you must soon return; but she refused to quit the sleigh. Anneke is in the sleigh, if that can now be found.”
I heard no more; but springing on the still moving cakes of ice, went leaping from cake to cake, until my sight showed me that, sure enough, the sleigh was on the bed of the river, over which it was in slow motion; forced downwards before the new coating of ice that was fast covering the original surface. At first I could see no one in the sleigh; but, on reaching it, I found Anneke buried in the skins. She was on her knees: the precious creature was asking succour from God!
I had a wild but sweet consolation in thus finding myself, as it might be, cut off from all the rest of my kind, in the midst of that scene of gloom and desolation, alone with Anneke Mordaunt. The moment I could make her conscious of my presence, she inquired after Mary Wallace, and was much relieved on learning that she was with Guert, and would not be left by him, for a single instant, again that night. Indeed, I saw their figures dimly, as they moved swiftly across the channel that divided the two islands, and disappear in that direction, among the bushes that lined the place to which they had gone.
“Let us follow,” I said eagerly. “The crossing is yet easy, and we, too, may escape to the shore.”
“Go you!” said Anneke, over whom a momentary physical torpor appeared to have passed. “Go you, Corny,” she said; “a man may easily save himself; and you are an only child—the sole hope of your parents.”
“Dearest, beloved Anneke!—why this indifference—this apathy on your own behalf? Are you not an only child, the sole hope of a widowed father?—do you forget him?”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed the dear girl, hurriedly. “Help me out of the sleigh, Corny: there, I will go with you anywhere—any how—to the end of the world, to save my father from such anguish!”
From that moment the temporary imbecility of Anneke vanished, and I found her, for the remainder of the time we remained in jeopardy, quick to apprehend, and ready to second all my efforts. It was this passing submission to an imaginary doom, on the one hand, and the headlong effect of sudden fright on the other, which had separated the two girls, and which had been the means of dividing the whole party as described.
I scarcely know how to describe what followed. So intense was my apprehension on behalf of Anneke, that I can safely say, I did not think of my own fate, in the slightest degree, as disconnected from hers. The self-devoted reliance with which the dear girl seemed to place all her dependence on me, would, of itself, have produced this effect, had she not possessed my whole heart, as I was now so fully aware. Moments like those, make one alive to all the affections, and strip off every covering that habit or the dissembling of our manners is so apt to throw over the feelings. I believe I both spoke and acted towards Anneke, as one would cling to, or address the being dearest to him in the world, for the next few minutes; but, I can suppose the reader will naturally prefer learning what we did, under such circumstances, rather than what we said, or how we felt.
I repeat, it is not easy for me to describe what followed. I know we first rather ran, than walked, across the channel on which I had last seen the dim forms of Guert and Mary, and even crossed the island to its eastern side, in the hope of being able to reach the shore in that quarter. The attempt was useless, for we found the water running down over the ice like a race-way. Nothing could be seen of our late companions; and my loud and repeated calls to them were unanswered.
“Our case is hopeless, Cornelius,” said Anneke; speaking with a forced calmness when she found retreat impossible in that direction, “Let us return to the sleigh, and submit to the will of God!”
“Beloved Anneke!—Think of your father, and summon your whole strength. The bed of the river is yet firm; we will cross it, and try the opposite shore.”
Cross it we did, my delicate companion being as much sustained by my supporting arm, as by her own resolution but we found the same obstacle to retreat interposing there also. The island above had turned the waters aside, until they found an outlet under each bank—shooting along their willowy shores, with the velocity of arrows. By this time, owing to our hurried movement, I found Anneke so far exhausted, that it was absolutely necessary to pause a minute to take breath. This pause was also necessary, in order to look about us, and to decide understandingly as to the course it was necessary now to pursue. This pause, brief as it was, moreover, contributed largely to the apparent horrors of our situation.
The grating, or grinding of the ice above us, cake upon cake, now sounded like the rushing of heavy winds, or the incessant roaring of a surf upon the sea-shore. The piles were becoming visible, by their height and their proximity, as the ragged barriers set slowly but steadily down upon us; and the whole river seemed to me to be in motion downwards. At this awful instant, when I began to think it was the will of Providence that Anneke and I were to perish together, a strange sound interrupted the fearful natural accessories of that frightful scene. I certainly heard the bells of a sleigh; at first they seemed distant and broken—then, nearer and incessant, attended by the rumbling of runners on the ice. I took off my cap and pressed my head, for I feared my brain was unsettled. There it came, however, more and more distinctly, until the trampling of horses’ hoofs mingled in the noise.
“Can there be others as unhappy as ourselves!” exclaimed Anneke, forgetting her own fears in generous sympathy. “See, Littlepage!—see, dear Cornelius—yonder surely comes another sleigh!”
Come it did, like the tempest, or the whirlwind; passing within fifty feet of us. I knew it at a glance. It was the sleigh of Herman Mordaunt, empty; with the horses, maddened by terror, running wherever their fears impelled. As the sleigh passed, it was thrown on one side; then it was once more whirled up again; and it went out
