Then began a terrible, obstinate struggle against the dangers threatened
by the elements of nature.
While Frederick rowed with incredible energy, over-excited at the sight
of the canoe of the marquis, on which from time to time he would cast a
look of generous emulation, David, sitting in front of the boat, guarded
it from shocks with an address and presence of mind which was
marvellous.
Already he had approached the farmhouse near enough to see distinctly
the unfortunate family clinging to the roof, when an enormous stack of
straw, carried by the waters, advanced on the right of the boat, which
presented to the obstacle its breadth in cutting the current.
"Double your strokes, Frederick!" cried David. "Courage! let us avoid
that stack of straw."
The son of Madame Bastien obeyed.
Already the prow of the little boat had gone beyond the stack of straw,
which was not more than ten steps distant, when the young man,
stiffening his arm as he threw himself violently back, so as to give
more power to his stroke, made too sudden a movement, and broke his
right oar. Soon, the left oar forming a lever, the boat turned about,
and, instead of her breadth, presented her prow to the stack, which
threatened to engulf her beneath its weight.
David, surprised by the sudden jolt, lost for a moment his equilibrium,
but had time to cry:
"Row firmly with the oar left to you."
Frederick obeyed more by instinct than by reflection. The little boat
turned again, presented its breadth, and, half raised by the eddy around
the spheroid mass which had already touched the prow, swung on the
single oar as if it had been a pivot, thus describing a half circle
around the floating obstruction, and escaping from it in such a way as
to receive only a slight shock.
While all this was taking place with the rapidity of thought, David,
seizing a spare oar from the bottom of the boat, fixed it in the thole,
saying to Frederick, who was excited by the frightful danger he had just
escaped:
"Take this new oar and go forward; the canoe is gaining on us."
Frederick seized the oar, at the same time throwing a glance on the
craft of the young marquis.
It was going directly toward the farmhouse, standing in the current,
while the little boat was cutting it crosswise.
So, supposing they were of equal speed, the two craft, whose course
formed a right angle, would meet at the farmhouse.
But, as we have said, the canoe, although it ascended the current, being
managed by six vigorous oarsmen, was considerably in advance, thanks to
the accident to which the little boat had nearly fallen a victim.
Frederick, seeing the marquis precede him, reached such a degree of
excitement that for a given time his natural strength was raised to an
irresistible power, and enabled him to accomplish wonders.
One would have said that the son of Madame Bastien had communicated his
feverish ardour to inanimate objects, and that the little craft trembled
with impatience in its entire frame, while the oars seemed to receive
not only motion, but life, with such precision and harmony did they obey
Frederick's every movement.
David himself, surprised at this incredible energy, continued to watch
in front of the little boat, casting a radiant look on his pupil, whose
heroic emulation he understood so well.
Suddenly Frederick uttered an exclamation of profound joy.
The little boat was only twenty-five steps from the farmhouse, while the
yawl was still distant about a hundred steps.
Suddenly, prolonged cries of distress, accompanied by a terrible crash,
rose above the sound of the roaring waters.
One of the gable ends of the farmhouse, undermined by the force of the
current, fell down with a loud noise, and a part of the roof was giving
way at the same time.
Then the family grouped around the chimney had no other support for
their feet than some fragments of carpentry, the slow oscillations of
which predicted their speedy fall.
In a few minutes, the gable end where the chimney was built, in its
turn, sank into the abyss.
The unfortunate sufferers presented a heartrending picture, worthy of
the painter of the Deluge.
The father standing half clothed, livid, his lips blue, his eye haggard,
holding on to the tottering chimney with his left hand; two of the
eldest children, locked in each other's arms, he bore upon his
shoulders; around his right wrist was wrapped a rope, which he had been
able to fasten to the opposite side of the chimney; by means of this
rope, which girded the loins of his wife, he supported her, and
prevented her fall into the water; for the poor woman, paralysed by
cold, fatigue, and terror, had lost almost all consciousness; maternal
instinct enabled her to press her nursing infant in her rigid arms to
her bosom, and, in her desperation, the better to hold it, she had
caught between her teeth the woollen skirt of the child's dress, to
which she clung with the tenacity of a convulsion.
The agony of these wretched beings had already lasted five hours.
Overcome by terror, they seemed no longer to see or to hear.
When David, arriving within the range of the voice, called out to them,
"Try to seize the rope that I throw to you!" there was no response.
Those whom he had come to save seemed absolutely petrified.
Realising that the shipwrecked were often incapable of assisting in
their own rescue, David acted promptly, for the gable end, as well as
the remainder of the roof, threatened to sink in the abyss every moment.
The little boat, pushed by the current, was managed in such a way as to
touch the ruins of the building on the side opposite to that most likely
to fall; then, while Frederick, hanging on with both hands to a
projecting beam, held the craft on the side of the roof, David, one foot
on the prow, and the other on the unsteady rafters, took hold of the
mother with a strong arm, and placed her and the child in the bottom of
the boat. Then the intelligence of the poor people, stupefied by cold
and fright, seemed suddenly to awaken.
Jean Francois, holding by one hand to the rope, handed his two children
over into the arms of David and Frederick, and then descended himself
into the little boat, and stretched himself out by the side of his wife
and children under the warm covering,--all remaining as motionless as
possible for fear of upsetting the craft in its passage to the dead
waters. Scarcely had Frederick taken up his oars to row away from the
ruins of the farmhouse, when the whole mass was engulfed.
The reflux caused by the sinking of this mass of ruins was so violent,
that a tremendous surge lifted the little boat a moment, then, when it
sank, Frederick discovered, about ten steps from him in the middle of a
wave of spouting foam, the yawl of the marquis, turned half-way, on its
gunwale, and ready to capsize under the weight of an entanglement of
carpentry and stones, for the canoe had touched the farmhouse ruins
just about the time of the final wreck.
Frederick, at the sight of the canoe's danger, suspended the motion of
his oars an instant, and cried, as he turned around to David:
"What is to be done to help them? Must I--"
He did not finish.
He left his oars, and leaped to the front of the little boat, and
plunged into the water.
To seize the oars so imprudently abandoned by Frederick and row with
desperate energy to the spot where the young man had just disappeared
was David's first movement; at the end of two minutes of inexpressible
anguish, he saw Frederick rise above the gulf, swimming vigorously with
one hand, and dragging a body after him.
With a few strokes of the oar, David joined his pupil.
The latter, seizing the prow of the little boat with the hand with which
he had been swimming, sustained with the other hand, above the water,
Raoul de Pont Brillant, pale, inanimate, and his face covered with
blood.
The marquis, struck on the head by a piece of the wreck which came near
sinking the yawl, had been, by the same violent blow, thrown into the
water, while the frightened oarsmen were occupied in relieving the craft
from the timber which encumbered it. The canoe had hardly recovered her
equilibrium, when the coxswain, seeing that his master had disappeared,
looked around the craft in consternation, and at last discovered the
marquis as he was held by the rescuing hand of Frederick.
The six oarsmen soon gained the spot where the little boat lay, and took
on board Raoul de Pont Brillant, who had fainted.
Frederick, with David's assistance, came out of the water, and entered
the little boat, when the oarsmen from the castle cried out to him in
terror:
"Take care! a float of wood!"
[Illustration: "SEIZING THE PROW OF THE LITTLE BOAT."]
In fact, the floating mass, coming rapidly behind the little boat, had
not been seen by David, who was entirely occupied with Frederick.
At this new danger the preceptor recovered his presence of mind; he
threw his boat-hook on the canoe of the marquis, and by means of this
support drew himself to her, and thus escaped the shock threatened by
the float of wood.
"Ah, monsieur," said the coxswain of the oarsmen, while the little boat
was lying some seconds by the side of the canoe, "what is the name of
the courageous young man who has just saved the marquis?"
"The wound of the Marquis de Pont Brillant may be serious," said David,
without answering the coxswain's question. "It is the most prudent thing
to return to the castle without delay."
Then, disengaging the boat-hook from the canoe, so as to give freedom of
action to the little boat, David said to Frederick, who with radiant
countenance was throwing back his long hair dripping with water:
"To your oars, my child. God is with us. When we once reach the dead
waters, we are safe."
* * * * *
God, as David had said, was protecting the little boat. They reached the
dead waters without further accident. There danger ceased almost
entirely.
The preceptor, finding his watch at the prow no longer necessary, took
the oars from the weary hands of Frederick, who hastened to make the
unfortunate sufferers drink a little wine.
Ten minutes after, the little boat landed upon the shore.