Then straining my ears, yet still battling with trees, rocks, etc., I caught the sound her finer ear had first detected, which was like the rushing of a great wind at a distance. This perplexed me greatly for a space, for there was but a little air stirring; but at length, growing more used to the sound, which increased every instant, I hit upon an explanation of it which struck despair into my soul.
"Lord help us!" says I, "'tis the cataract we were warned against by the Ingas."
"Oh, what is to be done?" says she.
"Nay," says I, dropping my oar, "there is nothing to do now but to perish, dear cousin."
But she was not minded to perish tamely thus; and seeing we were drifting upon a tree, deftly turned her oar to my side and pushed the canoe from it, to our immediate salvation. Thus put to shame for my cowardice, I picked up my oar and strove again vigorously to keep in clear water.
But now the roaring of that fall was grown to the loudness of thunder, and casting my eye that way I perceived a kind of cloud rising above the river, which was nothing but the vapor thrown off by the heat of this vast river in falling such a prodigious depth.
Hitherto we had striven only to keep to the middle of the river, but now I glanced to the side, for there only might we chance to escape being engulfed in the cataract; though only to be crushed amidst the tearing heaps of timber that swept the shores. To my astonishment, I saw nothing but steep rocks on either hand; for being entirely occupied in steering away from the floating masses on the river, I had taken no note of the changing character of the country we had entered. In that glance I perceived there was no escape by the sides; so that there seemed truly no way but to go down with the water into that terrible abysm.
And yet my spirits recoiled from such an end, being stirred up to a desperate antagonism by the frightful noise of the waters, that appeared to me like the impatient roaring of some great cage of famished lions awaiting their meal.
Lady Biddy glanced round her at the same moment, and I saw no look of hope in her face. In truth, she saw no escape, for now we were come within the cold vapors of the fall, that fell on us like an autumn mist; and so she turned her face to me, and seeing naught but despair there, her face lit up with a gentle smile, and she held forth her hands for me to take. Her lips moved as I clasped her dear hand, and though I could hear never a sound from the thundering of the fall now close to our ears, I knew full well that those last words were, "God bless you, dear Benet!"
The thought that she must die, so beautiful and sweet, and still but in the budding season of her life, and that after enduring so much, and striving so bravely and heartily, did fire me with a very madness of revolt against Providence, which, as I wickedly conceived, had doomed this dear girl, against all reason, justice, and mercy, to death; so that with a furious cry I caught up my oar and struck it wildly against a rock upon which we were being carried.