Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/125

112 myself. The night was calm and beautiful in its dim snow-light, and the red glow of the northern streamers above our heads flashed and leaped and quivered in a thousand brilliant coruscations; while strangely and sweetly through the grey old woods sounded the clear girlish voices of the sisters, as from the different sleighs they sang in alternate stanzas one of the quaint old ballads of the middle ages. At length we reached the banks of the Tircouaga, which lay between us and our home, a mirror of ice, and we at once commenced its passage. As we swept quickly on, it seemed to me that some other sound mingled with the firm footfalls of the horses, and the chime of their bells—a low threatening murmur like the echo of a distant tempest. But Mr. Norton drove gaily on, as if he either heard it not, or thought nothing of it, and I dismissed it from my mind, until as we drew near the centre of the river, strange dark spots, like cloud-shadows, began to fleck its gleaming surface.

The next instant one appeared right on Mr. Norton’s path, and too close for him to avoid. With a long leap the horse bounded over it, and as the sleigh was drawn quickly after, there was a plash that told it had struck against water. I could see Mr. Norton spring hurriedly up.

“Back, back, for your lives!” he cried to us; “the ice is breaking up!”

I turned to follow his directions, but it was too late—two or three such spots lay between us and the bank. I looked around; they were rapidly appearing on every side; and then I remembered to have heard that the ice of the Tircouaga, like that of several other Canadian rivers, was treacherous in consequence of hot springs in the bed of the river, which at times burst forth; and that particularly in the early part of the winter the morning would see the river covered with ice, of which before evening not a trace would remain.

Perceiving how matters were, Mr. Norton bade us follow him, and quickly, for that not a moment was to be lost; and then dashed off at a rapid pace for the opposite bank, leaping the chasms, and speeding lightly on over the frozen portions, as if he hoped by swiftness to diminish the danger; and with the same breathless speed we hastened on in his rear.

Meanwhile, larger and more numerous grew those dark blue spaces, and longer and more frequent our horses’ leaps. At length there came a chasm mine could not venture. I looked eagerly round for some more favourable spot; but as my eye glanced onward, it fell on constantly-widening water, until it had gone the circuit; and, with a sensation of surprise and horror, I perceived that we stood upon an ice island, from which the surrounding ice was rapidly retreating. I looked after Mr. Norton; but, unsuspicious of what had happened, he was still making his way with arrowy speed across the ice; so I felt we were left to our own efforts for escape, and my utter inexperience rendered the chances few indeed, unless we should again draw near enough to the main ice to leap the space between; and none can tell how anxiously I watched each movement of our raft as it began to yield to the influence of the current. But each fathom that we were swept down the river seemed to bear us an equal distance from its icy borders, and we soon found ourselves floating on a comparatively open space of water, and surrounded by numerous ice-islets.

I could almost have echoed poor Annie’s cry of agony when the certainty of our position burst upon her, so fearful was it. Alone at midnight, on a fragment of ice, floating down a rapid river whose future course I knew not, while on each side stretched tracts of crumbling ice, and beyond them rose banks of inaccessible steepness! What could exceed the desolation of such a position, and what hope could it leave to us of life? While, to complete our misery, we had not even the power to struggle against our fate, but must passively await its coming.

How deeply I pitied my young companion, as she sat there weeping such bitter tears. It was hard for her to part with life, after sixteen years of such bright and joyous experience as hers had been; hard to lay it down thus suddenly and fearfully, absent from all she loved, and yet harder the unresolvable fears for her father’s and sister’s safety which our own danger had awakened. I tried to utter words of consolation as I wrapped the poor girl in the buffalo robes from the chill night air that our inaction rendered doubly cold. She looked a sad contrast to the bright creature of the last few hours, whose joyous ballad-strains were yet lingering in my ears. But when the first shock was over, poor Annie struggled bravely with her grief, and during the remainder of that long, dreary night of peril she sat calmly by my side, the most patient and resigned companion man ever had in danger.

Meanwhile, the river was bearing us swiftly on past rocky headlands, and dark pine forests, waving above lofty cliffs, on to yet wilder and sterner regions, where it seemed even the red man would scarce pitch his wigwam. Sometimes the river swept us smoothly along on its broad bosom, at others it contracted into narrower limits, and hurried on with a quicker current; and as our frail raft was swayed about by the broken water, we oft-times thought either that it would part, or we be swept from its slippery surface, while every now and then our poor horse beat the ice wildly with his hoof, and, as he recognised its unsoundness, his long shrill cries of distress and terror rang far and wide over the river, and quivered through the dismal woods beyond.

Day at length broke upon us, still floating down that lonely river, between its frowning banks, and on our raft, whose limits were now small indeed. Death seemed close upon us in one of his most repulsive forms, and we no longer pretended blindness to his coming, but spoke together as they should whose hour was at hand.

Suddenly the river took an abrupt bend, and, aided by the waters of another river, which here fell into it, spread almost to the dimensions of a lake; but still it was bordered by those monotonous, wall-like banks, shutting out every hope. At length we sighted something like a chasm dividing the cliff down to the water’s edge. I sprang to my feet in a moment. Here was at least a chance of life—the first that during all