With these words on his lips, Féron passed away. Henri had scarcely time to close his eyes before he was forced by the strong current of the crowd from the spot where he had been standing. He kept fast hold of Guido: just now he cared but little what became of himself; his only thought was to save the child. He was at last pushed into a position from which he could see the river; but he turned shuddering from the sight, which indeed was horrible beyond description. Men, women, and children were struggling in the icy waters, or sinking for the last time beneath them. Here and there a strong swimmer gained the opposite bank in safety; but the weak, the famished, the wounded perished by hundreds. Pieces of the broken bridge, to which drowning wretches were clinging, floated about amidst débris of every conceivable kind; and those on board the few sorely overcrowded boats were violently thrusting away their despairing comrades who tried to enter.
One of these boats was just putting off from the bank when Henri called aloud, “Take this child with you, for God’s sake!”
A tall man stood upright in the boat. “Hold him up, man,” he cried; “give us a sight of him.”
Henri did so.
“The very child we are seeking—eh, comrades?” said the man, turning to his companions. “About three or four years old, fair-haired, with a crimson velvet cap. Well worth our while—a thousand ducats reward.” Then to Henri: “Throw him in, my lad.”
This was much more easily said than done. Little Guido clung to his protector with all his might, absolutely refusing to be separated from him. Henri found it impossible to unclasp those soft arms from about his neck, though he tried hard to do it.
Meanwhile the men in the boat were disputing with one another. Some were willing to take Henri as well as the child; others objected, afraid of losing the reward or of having to share it with him. But the tall man who had spoken first decided the question. “Let the lad come with us,” he said. “Anything to save time.”
So Henri stepped into the boat with his little companion still in his arms. It did not occur to him until afterwards that Madame Leone would have been by no means able to offer a reward so large as a thousand ducats for the recovery of her child. Happily during the crossing Guido engrossed all his attention. Terrified by everything around him, he cried violently for his mother, and refused to be comforted; so that a child’s tears drew away the eyes of Henri from the agonized faces of strong men, who were looking up to Heaven with their last appeal for mercy ere they sank to rise no more.
Scarcely had the boat touched the opposite bank of the stream, when a lady ran down to meet it, and stretched out her arms to receive the boy. But the next moment a cry of bitter disappointment rang through the air. This was not her child—not the darling for whose recovery she had offered all her golden store. The broken-hearted mother turned away, and Henri saw her no more. Still holding Guido in his arms, he followed listlessly and mechanically the stream of fugitives who were taking the road to Vilna.