Down the River to the Sea

by Agnes Maule Machar

And a hush seemed to steal over the little party, as they turned silently away from the fateful spot.

“Yes,” remarked Kate, as they reascended the stairway to Goat Island, “the old Indian legend was not so far wrong—that the deity of the Falls demanded a victim yearly. There is scarcely a year in which more than one victim is not secured by these insatiable waters, though it is not always a young maiden—as the legend has it.”

When they reached Mrs. Sandford, they found that she had spread the contents of the basket on a white cloth on the grass, and they were all hungry enough to enjoy their luncheon in the midst of such romantic surroundings. After the lunch was finished, and they had all rested for awhile, they made their way to the little staircase close by, down which they were all to go in order to get the wonderful view from below. Mrs. Sandford chose to descend in the elevator, and insisted that Hugh should accompany her, while the three girls ran merrily down the long stair, Flora counting the steps on the way. Hugh was determined, in spite of all his aunt’s persuasive eloquence, to don a waterproof suit in order to go under the Falls and explore the Cave of the Winds; and Kate agreed to be his companion, the rest preferring to venture along the rocky pathway, only so far as they could safely do, under cover of their umbrellas. Mrs. Sandford took her seat on a mass of black rock, declaring that she would remain there, in fear and trembling, until they all returned in safety from their expedition. May and Flora strolled about the surrounding rocks, looking up, with some dread, at the precipices towering above them, and at the tremendous columns of falling water, which filled in the view in every direction. Presently, three frightful figures in bulky garments of yellow oilskin emerged from the building at the foot of the stairs, from two of which they presently, to their great amusement, recognized the voices of Hugh and Kate, accompanied by the guide. Allowing these extraordinary figures to precede them, May and Flora clung closely together, holding an umbrella between them, and following, as closely as they could, along the narrow pathway, where the spray rained down perpetually on the shining black rocks below. As they left the American Fall farther behind them, skirting the rugged brown cliffs that support Goat Island high overhead, the pathway became comparatively dry, and they could see more clearly before them the great Fall they were approaching from beneath—its tremendous wall of fleecy foam rising high above them into the deep blue sky, and losing itself below in the floating clouds of spray, which they soon began to feel again in a renewal of the light shower. The two girls had to stop, at last, and stood spellbound, watching the mighty expanse of eternally falling water, its fleecy, flashing masses of milk-white foam, and its gray impalpable billows of ever-ascending spray—through the rifts in which they could ever and anon catch glimpses of that seemingly solid gray wall of water behind. Strange sensations of awe at its solemn grandeur alternating with the sense of the exquisite beauty of the scene absorbed their consciousness, while they mechanically observed, also, the yellow figures—so infinitesimally small beside the mighty cataract—as they passed onward, and were for a few moments, to their momentary terror, lost to view among the clouds of spray that hid their farther progress. Very soon, however, they emerged again, and soon regained the point where the girls were standing, breathless and dripping, but in overflowing spirits.

“And what did you see, when you got in behind the Falls?” asked Flora.

“We certainly did not see much,” replied her brother. “Everything visible seemed swallowed up in a gray mist, but the whole experience was a wonderful one! I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

“Well, I’m quite contented with what I’ve had!” said Flora.

May had for a moment a little wistful sense of having missed something, but, after all, intense satisfaction preponderated.

Returning again to the starting-point, they gave Mrs. Sandford reassuring evidence of their safety, so far, and promising a quick return, they pursued their way to the entrance of the “Cave of the Winds,” the name given to the hollow arched over by the concave rock and the falling sheet of the lovely little Central Fall. May and Flora again followed under their umbrella, as far as they dared, and there waited, enjoying the wonder and novelty of the sight. May gazed into the mysterious cavern before her, veiled by the clouds of milky spray, as if it were indeed the veritable Cave of Æolus, in which were confined the wailing winds which clamored to be let loose on their mission of destruction, and also, it might be, of blessing; whose hollow roar seemed blended with the full soft “thunder of waters.”

May had lost all count of time, absorbed in the scene before her, when Flora’s relieved exclamation, “Oh, here they are at last!” recalled her absorbed senses, and she perceived the dripping figures of what might have been disguised river-gods, scrambling back along the wet, rocky pathway.

“Oh, it was grand!” Kate declared. “I’ll never forget it! To stand, just between those two lovely falls, till you felt as if you were actually a part of them! And then we went on a little way behind the American sheet, too.”