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.
Dumais, thrown forward by the unexpected shock, clasped the trunk of the cedar convulsively with both arms. Supporting himself on one leg, he clung there desperately while the ice swayed and cracked and threatened every instant to drag him from his frail support.
Nothing was lacking to the lurid and dreadful scene. The hurrying torches on the shores threw a grim light on the ghastly features and staring eyes of the poor wretch thus hanging by a hair above the gulf of death. Unquestionably Dumais was brave, but in this position of unspeakable horror he lost his self-control.
Marcheterre and his friends, however, still cherished a hope of saving him.
Descrying on the shore near the saw mill two great pieces of squared timber, they dragged these to a rock which projected into the river about two hundred feet above the fall; to each of these timbers they attached a cable and launched them forth, in hopes that the current would carry them upon the island. Vain attempt! They could not thrust them far enough out into the stream, and the timbers, anchored, as it were, by the weight of the chains, kept swaying mid way between shore and island.
It seemed impossible to add to the awful sublimity of the picture, but on the shore was being enacted a most impressive scene. It was religion preparing the Christian to appear before the dread tribunal; it was religion supporting him to endure the final agony.
The parish priest, who had been at a sick bed, was now upon the scene. He was a tall old man of ninety. The burden of years had not availed to bend this modern Nestor, who had baptized and married all his parishioners, and had buried three generations of them. His long hair, white as snow and tossed by the night wind, made him look like a prophet of old. He stood erect on the shore, his hands stretched out to the miserable Dumais. He loved him; he had christened him; he had prepared him for that significant rite of the Catholic Church which seems suddenly to touch a child's nature with something of the angelic. He loved him also as the husband of an orphan girl whom the old priest had brought up. He loved him for the sake of his two little ones, who were the joy of his old age. Standing there on the shore, like the Angel of Pity, he not only administered the consolations of his sacred office, but spoke to him tender words of love. He promised him that the seigneur would never let his family come to want. Finally, seeing the tree yield more and more before every shock, he cried in a loud voice, broken with sobs: "My son, make me the 'Act of Contrition' and I will give you absolution." A moment later, in a voice that rang clear above the roaring of the flood and of the cataract, the old priest pronounced these words: "My son, in the name of God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, by whose authority I speak, in the name of the Holy Ghost, your sins are forgiven you. Amen." And all the people sobbed, "Amen."
Then Nature reasserted herself, and the old man's voice was choked with tears. Again he regained his self-control, and cried: "Kneel, brethren, while I say the prayers for the dying."
Once more the old priest's voice soared above the tumult, as he cried:
"Blessed soul, we dismiss you from the body in the name of God the Father Almighty who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Ghost in whom you were regenerate and born again, in the name of the angels and the archangels, in the name of the thrones and the dominions, in the name of the cherubim and seraphim, in the name of the patriarchs and prophets, in the name of the blessed monks and nuns and all the saints of God. The peace of God be with you this day, and your dwelling forever in Sion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." And all the people wailed "Amen."
A death-like silence fell upon the scene, when suddenly shrieks were heard in the rear of the crowd, and a woman in disordered garments, her hair streaming out behind her, carrying a child in her arms and dragging another at her side, pushed her way wildly to the river's edge. It was the wife of Dumais.
Dwelling about a mile and a half from the village, she had heard the alarm bell; but being alone with her children, whom she could not leave, she had resigned herself as best she could till her husband should return and tell her the cause of the excitement.
The woman, when she saw her husband thus hanging on the lip of the fall, uttered but one cry, a cry so terrible that it pierced every heart, and sank in a merciful unconsciousness. She was carried to the manor house, where every care was lavished upon her by Madame de Beaumont and her family.
As for Dumais, at the sight of his wife and children, a hoarse scream, inarticulate and like the voice of a wounded beast, forced its way from his lips and made all that heard it shudder. Then he appeared to fall into a kind of stupor.
At the very moment when the old priest was administering