David, leaning over the craft in front, sounded with his boat-hook the spot where he had seen light bubbles rising to the surface, for fear the boat might break against some obstacle under the water.
In fact, David discovered that the boat was almost immediately over a mass of willow branches, in which the little craft might have become entangled if it had been going at its highest speed. Leaning then his boat-hook against a log he met in the water, David turned his boat out of the way of this perilous obstruction.
"Now, my child," said he, "row in front of you, turning a little to the left, so as to reach those three tall poplars you see down there, half submerged in the water. Once arrived there, we will enter the middle of the overflow's current, which we feel even here, although we are still in dead water."
At the end of a few minutes David called again:
"Hold oars!"
And with these words David hooked his boat-hook among the branches of one of the poplars toward which Frederick was rowing; these trees, thirty feet in height, were three-quarters submerged. Sustained by the boat-hook, the little craft remained immovable.
"What! we are going to stop, M. David?" cried Frederick.
"You must rest a moment, my child, and drink a few swallows of this wine."
Then David, with remarkable coolness, uncorked a bottle of wine, which he offered to his pupil.
"Stop to rest!" cried Frederick, "while those poor people are waiting for us!"