Half an hour passed without the prognostication of the fisherman being fulfilled. The same lull in the air, the same agitation of the water continued; Occhiobello was in sight, and the sun was sinking far away over the Piedmontese hills, surrounded by a leaden purple colour, in which it was difficult to say whether the dull stormy gray or the crimson glow of evening predominated. In the south, the same heavy clouds were seen, somewhat higher than when the wind fell, cutting hard upon the blue sky overhead; and the large mass of vapour, the peculiar appearance of which I have already mentioned, lay contorting itself into a thousand different forms every moment. On the right bank, not far behind them, when they looked back, the travellers could see their horses and servants coming at an easy pace down the course of the stream, the slow progress of the boat having given an advantage to the party on land; and in front, a little more than half way between them and Occhiobello, a row boat was perceived crossing the broad river from the left bank to the right, apparently with great difficulty, and heavily laden.
"That is Mantini's boat," said one of the boatmen to the other.
"Ay, he'll get himself into a scrape some day," said the old man. "You see he's got horses in it now!"
"How is that likely to get him into a scrape?" asked Lord Gowrie. "Is the boat not fitted for horses?"
"Oh yes, signor," replied the man; "but it is not that I spoke of. The law says, no boat shall carry horses, oxen, or asses, except the regular ferry boats."
"Few would get across, then, by any other conveyance," said Sir John Hume; "for this infernal tossing is beginning to make me think that none but asses, would go in a small boat when they could get a big one. Come, row on, row on, my men; for if you lose time grinning at my joke, I shall not take it as a compliment."
The men put their strength to the oar, and the boat flew on a good deal more rapidly; for a gay good-humoured manner will always do more with an Italian than either promises or commands. The boat before them was rather more than half way across the river, while they, in the mid-stream, were rapidly approaching it, when suddenly the old boatman, starting up, pushed his way to the stern between the earl and Mr. Rhind, and thrust his oar deep in the water, somewhat in the fashion of a rudder, exclaiming, "It is coming, by St. Antony! keep her head on, boys--keep her head on!" and looking out along the course of the stream, Lord Gowrie saw a wave rushing up against the current, not unlike that which, under the name of the Mascaré, proves so frequently fatal to boats in Dordogne. Towards the middle of the river, the height of this watery wall, as it seemed to be, was not less than seven or eight feet, though near the banks it was much less, and all along the top was an overhanging crest of foam, snow-white, like an edge of curling plumes. A loud roar accompanied it; and the fierce hurricane, which was probably the cause of the phenomenon, seemed to precede the billow it had raised by some forty or fifty yards; for the heavy-laden boat which they had seen, and which, having approached much nearer the bank, was much less exposed to the force of the rushing wave than their own, was in an instant capsized by the violence of the blast, and every one it contained cast into the rushing water.
Horses and men were seen struggling in the stream; and with horror the earl beheld a woman's garments also. "Towards the bank!--towards the bank!" he cried, "to give them help;" but the boatmen paid not the least attention, and scarcely had the words quitted his mouth when the wind struck their boat also. One of the young men, who had been standing up, was cast headlong into the bottom of the bark; those who were seated could hardly resist the fury of the gale; and the next instant the wall of water struck them with such force, that instead of rising over it, as the old boatman had hoped, the skiff filled in a moment, and went down.
For an instant the Earl of Gowrie saw nothing but the green flashing light of the wave, and heard nothing but the roaring of the water in his ears; but accustomed from his infancy to breast the dangerous billows of the Firth of Tay, he struck boldly out, rising to the surface, with very little alarm for himself or for his companion Hume, whom he knew to be a practised swimmer also. His first thought was for his good old preceptor; but he soon saw that Mr. Rhind was even in a better condition than himself, having somehow got possession of an oar, over which he had cast his arms, so as both to hold it fast, and to keep his head and shoulders out of water. The old boatman and his two sons were seen at some little distance striking away towards the shore; and Hume, never losing his merriment even in the moment of the greatest peril, shouted loudly, "Get to land, Gowrie--get to land! I will pilot Rhind to the bank, if he will but keep his helm down, and his prow as near the wind as possible."
As Hume was much nearer to the worthy tutor, Lord Gowrie followed his advice; but the first two strokes which he took towards the land, drifting, as he did so, part of the way down the stream, showed him at a few yards' distance a scene of even greater interest than that which actually surrounded him. It was that of the boat which had been capsized by the first rush of the hurricane. It had not sunk at once as his own smaller craft had done, and one or two men were clinging to a part of it which appeared above the water. Close by, a horse's head and neck protruded above the stream; and the hoofs were seen beating the water furiously, in the poor animal's violent efforts to reach the land. Considerably nearer to the earl was a group of three persons, two men and a woman. One of the men, only a few feet distant from the others, and apparently but little practised in the art of swimming, was struggling furiously, with energetic efforts, to reach a better swimmer, who was not only making his own way towards the shore, but supporting coolly and steadily with his left hand the head and shoulders of the girl beside him. She herself was dressed in the garb of a peasant; but a feeling of terror indescribable seized upon the earl, when in the face of the man who supported her he recognised the features of his own servant, Austin Jute. He saw in an instant that if the drowning man once caught hold of them, all three must inevitably perish; and swimming towards them as fast as possible, he shouted, "To the shore, Austin--to the shore! Don't let him reach you, or you're lost!"