In a quarter of an hour the little boat was lifted from the cart, and
soon after was set afloat on the dead waters of the inundation.
"Andre, stay there with the cart," said the preceptor, "because the
miserable people, to whose rescue we are going, will be altogether too
feeble to walk to Madame Bastien's house."
"Well, M. David," said the old man.
And he added with emotion:
"Good courage, my poor M. Frederick."
"My child," said David, just as the boat was leaving the shore, "in
order to be prepared for any emergency, do as I do. Take off your shoes
and stockings, your coat and your cravat; throw your coat over your
shoulders to prevent your taking cold. Whatever happens to me, do not
concern yourself about me. I am a good swimmer, and in trying to save
me, you would drown us both. Now, my child, at your oars, and row hard,
but not too fast; husband your strength. I will be on the watch in
front, and will sound the waters. Come now, with calmness and presence
of mind, all will go well."
The boat now had left the shore.
Courage, energy, and the consciousness of the noble expiation he was
about to attempt, supplied Frederick with all the strength that he had
lost during his long illness of mind and body.
His beautiful features animated with enthusiasm, his eyes fixed on
David, watching for every order, the son of Madame Bastien rowed with
vigour and precision. At each stroke of the oar, the little boat
advanced rapidly and without obstruction.
David, standing in front, straightening his tall form to its utmost
height, his head bare, his black hair floating in the wind, his eye
sometimes fixed on the almost submerged farmhouse, and sometimes on
objects which might prove an obstacle in their course,--cool, prudent
and attentive, showed a calm intrepidity. For some moments the progress
of the boat was unimpeded, but suddenly the preceptor called: "Hold
oars!"
Frederick executed this order, and after a few seconds the boat stopped.
David, leaning over the craft in front, sounded with his boat-hook the
spot where he had seen light bubbles rising to the surface, for fear the
boat might break against some obstacle under the water.
In fact, David discovered that the boat was almost immediately over a
mass of willow branches, in which the little craft might have become
entangled if it had been going at its highest speed. Leaning then his
boat-hook against a log he met in the water, David turned his boat out
of the way of this perilous obstruction.
"Now, my child," said he, "row in front of you, turning a little to the
left, so as to reach those three tall poplars you see down there, half
submerged in the water. Once arrived there, we will enter the middle of
the overflow's current, which we feel even here, although we are still
in dead water."
At the end of a few minutes David called again:
"Hold oars!"
And with these words David hooked his boat-hook among the branches of
one of the poplars toward which Frederick was rowing; these trees,
thirty feet in height, were three-quarters submerged. Sustained by the
boat-hook, the little craft remained immovable.
"What! we are going to stop, M. David?" cried Frederick.
"You must rest a moment, my child, and drink a few swallows of this
wine."
Then David, with remarkable coolness, uncorked a bottle of wine, which
he offered to his pupil.
"Stop to rest!" cried Frederick, "while those poor people are waiting
for us!"
"My child, you are panting for breath, your forehead is covered with
perspiration, your strength is being exhausted; I perceived it by the
shaking of your oars. We will reach these people in time; the water is
not rising any longer, I have seen by sure signs. We are going to need
all our energy and all our strength. Now, five minutes' rest taken at
the right time may ensure those persons' safety as well as our own.
Come, drink a few swallows of wine."
Frederick followed this advice, and realised the benefit of it, for
already, without having dared confess it to David, he felt in the joints
of his arms that numbness and rigidity which always succeed too much
fatigue and muscular tension.
During this period of enforced delay the preceptor and his pupil looked
upon the scene around them with silent horror.
From the point where they were they commanded an immense extent of
water, no longer dead, such as they had just passed over, but rapid,
foaming, impetuous as the course of a torrent.
From this vast expanse of water arose such a roar that from one end of
the little boat to the other Frederick and David were obliged to shout
aloud, in order to hear each other.
In the distance a line of dark gray water was the only thing which
marked the horizon.
About six hundred steps from the boat they saw the farmhouse.
The roof had almost completely disappeared under the waters, and human
forms grouped around the chimney could be vaguely distinguished.
Every moment, at a little distance from the craft, protected from
collision by the three poplars, which served as a sort of natural
palisade, thanks to David's foresight, floated all kinds of rubbish,
carried along on the current which the little boat was to cross in a few
moments.
On one side, beams and girders, and fragments of carpentry proceeding
from the crumbling buildings; on the other side, enormous haycocks and
stacks of straw, lifted from their base and dragged solidly along by the
waters, like so many floating mountains, submerging everything they
encountered; again, gigantic trees, torn up by the roots, rushed rapidly
by as lightly as bits of straw upon a babbling brook, while in their
rear followed doors unloosed from their hinges, furniture, mattresses,
and casks, and sometimes in the midst of these wrecks could be seen
cattle, some drowned, others struggling above the abyss soon to
disappear under it, and, in strange contrast, domestic ducks,
instinctively following the other animals, floated over the water in
undisturbed tranquillity. Elsewhere, heavy carts were whirled above the
gulf, and sometimes sank under the irresistible shock of immense floats
of wood a hundred feet long and twenty feet wide borne along with the
drift.
It was in the midst of these floating perils, upon an impetuous and
irresistible current, that David and Frederick were forced to direct
their boat in order to reach the farmhouse.
Then the danger of the salvage was becoming more imminent.
Frederick felt it, and as he saw David survey the terrible scene with an
expression of distress, he said, in a firm and serious tone:
"You were right, my friend, we shall soon need all our strength and all
our energy. This rest was necessary, but it seems cruel to take a rest
with such a spectacle under our eyes."
"Yes, my child, courage is necessary even to take rest; blind
recklessness does not see and does not try to see the danger, but true
courage coolly looks at the chances. Hence, it generally triumphs over
danger. If we had not taken some rest, we would certainly be dragged
into the middle of the gulf that we are about to cross, and we would be
destroyed."
Thus speaking, David examined with minute care the equipment of the boat
and renewed one of the tholes, which had split under the pressure of
Frederick's oar. For greater surety, David, by means of two knots of
cord sufficiently loose, fastened the oars to the gunwale a little below
their handle; in this way they could have free play, without escaping
from Frederick's hands in the accident of a violent collision.
The rest of the five minutes had reached its end when Frederick,
uttering an exclamation of involuntary surprise, became deathly pale,
and could not conceal the distortion of his features.
David raised his head, followed the direction of Frederick's eyes, and
saw what had alarmed his pupil.
As we have said, the inundation, without limit in the north and the
east, was bounded in the west by the border of the forest of Pont
Brillant, whose tall trees had disappeared half-way under the waters.
One of the woods of this forest, advancing far into the inundated
valley, formed a sort of promontory above the sheet of water.
For some time, Frederick had observed, issuing from this promontory, so
to speak, and rowing against the current, a long canoe, painted the
colour of goat leather, and relieved by a wide crimson railing or guard.
On the benches, six oarsmen, wearing chamois skin jackets and crimson
caps, were rowing vigorously; the cockswain seated at the back, where
he controlled the canoe, seemed to follow the orders of a young man,
who, erect upon one of the benches, with one hand in the pocket of his
mackintosh of a whitish colour, indicated with the index finger of the
other hand a point which could be nothing else than the submerged
farmhouse, as, in that part of the valley, no other building could be
seen.
David's little boat was too far from this canoe to enable him to
distinguish the features of the person who evidently directed the
manoeuvre, but from the expression of Frederick's countenance he did not
doubt that the master of the bark was Raoul de Pont Brillant.
The presence of the marquis on the scene of the disaster was explained
by the message that the gendarme, whom David met, had carried in haste
to the castle, demanding boats and men.
At the sight of Raoul de Pont Brillant, whose presence affected
Frederick so suddenly, David felt as much surprise as satisfaction; the
meeting with the young marquis seemed providential, and, fixing a
penetrating glance on his pupil, David said to him:
"My child, you recognise the Marquis de Pont Brillant?"
"Yes, my friend," answered the young man.
And he continued to follow, with a keen and restless eye the movements
of the yawl, which, evidently, was trying to reach the submerged
farmhouse, from which it was more distant than the little boat. However,
the six oarsmen of the patrician craft were rapidly diminishing the
distance.
"Come, Frederick," said David, in a firm voice, "the Marquis de Pont
Brillant, like us is going to the help of the unfortunate farmer. It is
brave and generous of him. Now is the time for you to envy, to be
jealous of the young marquis indeed!"
"Oh, I will get there before he does!" exclaimed Frederick, with an
indescribable exaltation.
"To your oars, my child! One last thought of your mother, and forward!
The hour has come."
So saying, David disengaged his boat-hook from the entanglement of the
branches of the poplar-trees.
The little boat, set in movement by the vigorous motion of the oars, in
a few minutes arrived in the middle of the current it must cross in
order to reach the farmhouse.