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 a.s.sisting 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 pa.s.sage to the dead waters. Scarcely had Frederick taken up his oars to row away from the ruins of the farmhouse, when the whole ma.s.s was engulfed.
The reflux caused by the sinking of this ma.s.s 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 enc.u.mbered it. The canoe had hardly recovered her equilibrium, when the c.o.xswain, 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 a.s.sistance, 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!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "SEIZING THE PROW OF THE LITTLE BOAT."]
In fact, the floating ma.s.s, 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 c.o.xswain 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 c.o.xswain"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. G.o.d is with us. When we once reach the dead waters, we are safe."
G.o.d, 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 sh.o.r.e.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
At their disembarking David and Frederick found Madame Bastien.
The young woman had a.s.sisted at a few of the episodes of this courageous salvage, by the aid of David"s field-gla.s.s, leaving the scene, and taking another view by turns, as the danger seemed imminent or surmounted.
Sometimes Marie found her strength unequal to the sight of the heroic struggle of her son, whom she could not encourage by word or gesture.