These were the terrible words spoken by the man who had rung my bell in the middle of the night, and startled me almost out of my senses. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and with a voice tremulous with emotion, said:
“No, no! it cannot be. Who would kill him?”
“I don’t mean he was murdered,” the officer hastened to add, seeing my mistake. “He was on the middle span of the bridge when it was carried away by the flood, and that’s the last of him!”
I drew a great sigh of relief. There was something unspeakably dreadful in the thought of noble Ben Mayberry being killed by anyone, and it lifted a vast burden from my shoulders to be told that no such awful fate had overtaken him.
But instantly came the staggering terror that the boy had gone down in the wreck and ruin, and at that moment was floating among the great masses of ice and débris that were sweeping swiftly down the river toward the sea.
“How was it?” I asked, after the officer had refused my invitation to enter.
“The river began rising very fast at dark, but the bridge has stood so many freshets we were hopeful of this. The water was at the top of the abutments at nine o’clock and was still creeping up. Jack Sprall, who is off duty to-night, was down by the bridge watching things. A little after ten o’clock, Ben Mayberry came along and said he had a message which he had promised to deliver to a gentleman at the hotel in Moorestown. Jack told him the bridge was unsafe, but Ben said he knew how to swim, and started across, whistling and jolly as usual. Jack said at the same time he heard the sound of wheels, which showed that a wagon or carriage had driven on from the other side, which never ought to have been allowed when things were looking so shaky. Ben had just about time to reach the middle of the bridge when the crash came, and the big span was wiped out, as though it was a chalk mark on a blackboard.”
“How do you know of a surety that Ben Mayberry did not save himself?”
“He is very active and strong, I know, which made Jack hope he had pulled through. In spite of the danger of the rest of the bridge going, Jack crept out over it to the abutment, and shouted to Ben.
“It seemed that a couple of men had done the same from Moorestown, and they stood on the other abutment, with the middle of the river sweeping between and threatening to take away the rest of the tottering bridge every minute.