Philippe Aubert de Gaspé - Cameron of Lochiel

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.