The Ruling Passion [61]
seconds--"Now!" he cried.
The canoe shot obliquely into the stream, driven by strong, quick
strokes of the paddles. It seemed almost to leap from wave to wave.
All was going well. The edge of the whirlpool was near. Then came
the crest of a larger wave,--slap--into the boat. Alden shrank
involuntarily from the cold water, and missed his stroke. An eddy
caught the bow and shoved it out. The whirlpool receded, dissolved.
The whole river rushed down upon the canoe and carried it away like
a leaf.
Who says that thought is swift and clear in a moment like that? Who
talks about the whole of a man's life passing before him in a flash
of light? A flash of darkness! Thought is paralyzed, dumb. "What
a fool!" "Good-bye!" "If--" That is about all it can say. And if
the moment is prolonged, it says the same thing over again, stunned,
bewildered, impotent. Then?--The rocking waves; the sinking boat;
the roar of the fall; the swift overturn; the icy, blinding,
strangling water--God!
Jean was flung shoreward. Instinctively he struck out, with the
current and half across it, toward a point of rock. His foot
touched bottom. He drew himself up and looked back. The canoe was
sweeping past, bottom upward, Alden underneath it.
Jean thrust himself out into the stream again, still going with the
current, but now away from shore. He gripped the canoe, flinging
his arm over the stern. Then he got hold of the thwart and tried to
turn it over. Too heavy! Groping underneath he caught Alden by the
shoulder and pulled him out. They would have gone down together but
for the boat.
"Hold on tight," gasped Jean, "put your arm over the canoe--the
other side!"
Alden, half dazed, obeyed him. The torrent carried the dancing,
slippery bark past another point. Just below it, there was a little
eddy.
"Now," cried Jean; "the back-water--strike for the land!"
They touched the black, gliddery rocks. They staggered out of the
water; waist-deep, knee-deep, ankle-deep; falling and rising again.
They crawled up on the warm moss. . . .
The first thing that Alden noticed was the line of bright red spots
on the wing of a cedar-bird fluttering silently through the branches
of the tree above him. He lay still and watched it, wondering that
he had never before observed those brilliant sparks of colour on the
little brown bird. Then he wondered what made his legs ache so.
Then he saw Jean, dripping wet, sitting on a stone and looking down
the river.
He got up painfully and went over to him. He put his hand on the
man's shoulder.
"Jean, you saved my life--I thank you, Marquis!"
"M'sieu'," said Jean, springing up, "I beg you not to mention it.
It was nothing. A narrow shave,--but LA BONNE CHANCE! And after
all, you were right,--we got to the island! But now how to get off?"
II
AN ALLIANCE OF RIVALS
Yes, of course they got off--the next day. At the foot of the
island, two miles below, there is a place where the water runs
quieter, and a BATEAU can cross from the main shore. Francois was
frightened when the others did not come back in the evening. He
made his way around to St. Joseph d'Alma, and got a boat to come up
and look for their bodies. He found them on the shore, alive and
very hungry. But all that has nothing to do with the story.
Nor does it make any difference how Alden spent the rest of his
summer in the woods, what kind of fishing he had, or what moved him
to leave five hundred dollars with Jean when he went away. That is
all padding: leave it out. The first point of interest is what Jean
did with the money. A suit of clothes, a new stove, and a set of
kitchen utensils for the log house opposite Grosse Ile, a trip to
Quebec, a little game of "Blof Americain" in the back room of the
Hotel du Nord,--that was