On the night that Ben Mayberry started across the bridge to deliver the cipher message to Mr. Burkhill in Moorestown, he had reached the center span before he felt he was in personal danger. The few lamps which twinkled at long distances from each other were barely enough for him to see where he was going, and they did little more than make the darkness visible.
By the faint light he observed a carriage and single horse approaching. The animal lifted his feet high, walked slowly, and snuffed the air as he turned his head from side to side, like an intelligent creature which feels he is approaching danger. The rattling of the narrow planks under his hoofs and the carriage wheels could be heard above the roar and sweep of the angry river beneath.
Suddenly the bridge trembled under a blow received from a gigantic piece of ice, which went grinding and splashing with such violence that its course could be followed by the bulging upward of the planks between Ben and the horse.
“My gracious! this won’t do,” exclaimed the boy, more alarmed for the vehicle and its occupants than for himself.
He ran forward to grasp the bridle of the horse with the purpose of turning him back, when he saw that he had stopped of his own accord, and was snorting with terror. Ben reached up to seize the bit, when he was made dizzy by the abrupt lifting of the planking underneath, and was thrown violently forward on his face.
The brave boy knew what it meant, and kept his senses about him. It was utterly dark, and he was in the icy water with a terrified horse struggling fiercely, and in danger of beating out the boy’s brains with his hoofs, while the shriek of the agonized mother rose above the horrid din:
“Save my child—save my child!”
Fortunately for Ben Mayberry the bridge broke up in a very unusual manner. Instead of the roof coming down upon him, it seemed to fall apart, as did the narrow planking. Thus his movements were not interfered with by the structure, and realizing what a desperate struggle for life was before him, he drew off his cumbersome overcoat with great deftness, and then swam as only a strong swimmer can do in the very extremity of peril.
He heard nothing more of the horse, which had doubtless perished after a struggle as brief as it was fierce; but, unable to see anything at all, Ben struck out toward the point whence came the cry of the mother, and which was close at hand.
He had scarcely made three strokes when he came in violent collision with a huge block of ice in his path. Without attempting to go around it, he grasped the edge, and, by a determined effort, drew himself upon it. Fragments of the bridge were all around, and he felt some of the timber upon the support.