"Don't get excited, Max, there's no hurry!"
"It's the river going to break up," said I, looking back impatiently.
"Yes, I know that, but it won't break up to-night, depend on it."
I was too eager to wait for more, but ran to the banks of the river,
which at that place was fully a mile wide. The moon was bright, and we
could see the familiar sheet of ice as still and cold as we had seen it
every day for many months past.
"Macnab's right," said I, "there will be no breakup to-night."
"Not so sure of that," returned Lumley; "the weather has been very warm
of late; melting snow has been gushing into it in thousands of streams,
and the strain on the ice--six feet thick though it is--must be
tremendous."
He was checked by another crashing report; but again silence ensued, and
we heard no more till next morning. Of course we were all up and away
to the river bank long before breakfast, but it was not till after that
meal that the final burst-up occurred. It was preceded by many
reports--towards the end by what seemed quite a smart artillery fire.
The whole sheet of ice on the great river seemed to be rising bodily
upwards from the tremendous hydraulic pressure underneath. But though
the thaws of spring had converted much snow into floods of water, they
had not greatly affected the surface of the ice, which still lay hard
and solid in all its wintry strength.
A greater Power, however, was present. If the ice had been made of
cast-iron six feet in thickness, it must have succumbed sooner or later.
At last, as Macnab said, "She went!" but who shall describe _how_ she
went? It seemed as if the mighty cake had been suddenly struck from
below and shattered. Then the turmoil that ensued was grand and
terrible beyond conception. It was but an insignificant portion of
God's waters at which we gazed, but how overwhelming it seemed to us!
Mass rose upon mass of ice, the cold grey water bursting through and
over all, hurling morsels as large as the side of a house violently on
each other, till a mighty pile was raised which next moment fell with a
crash into the boiling foam. Then, in one direction there was a rush
which seemed about to carry all before it, but instead of being piled
upwards, some of the masses were driven below, were thrust deep into the
mud, and a jam took place. In a few minutes the ice burst upwards
again, and the masses were swept on to join the battalions that were
already on their way towards the distant lake amid noise and crash and
devastation. It seemed as if ice and snow and water had combined to
revive the picture if not the reality of ancient chaos!
Thus the drapery of winter was rudely swept away, and next morning we
had the joy of seeing our river sweeping grandly on in all the liquid
beauty of early and welcome spring.