Against this despair he vainly struggled, hoping that perhaps Frederick had not resolved upon this terrible step. He even went so far as to attribute the disappearance of the young man to a schoolboy's trick.
Alas! David did not keep this illusion long; a sudden blast of wind which blew violently along the current of the river brought almost to David's feet, as it rolled and tossed it upon the sand, a cap of blue cloth bound with a little Scotch border, which Frederick had worn that morning.
"Unhappy child!" exclaimed David, his eyes full of tears, "and his mother, his mother! oh, this is terrible!"
Suddenly he heard, above the roar of the waters, and brought by the wind, a long cry of distress.
Remounting at once the bank opposite the wind which brought this cry to his ears, David ran with all his might in the direction of the call.
Suddenly he stopped.
These words, uttered with a heartrending cry, reached his ear:
"My mother! oh, my mother!"
A hundred steps before him, David perceived, almost at the same time, in the middle of the surging waters, the head of Frederick, livid! frightful! his long hair matted on his temples, his eyes horribly dilated, while his arms, in a last struggle, moved convulsively above the abyss.
Then the preceptor saw no more, save a wider, deeper bubbling in the spot where he had discovered the body.