Fire in the Woods / Illustrated

by James De Mille

For the last time, then, Pat changed the direction of the boat, turning it but slightly, however, just enough to aim at the upper island. Then again, as before, they put forth their last remaining energies. With feverish anxiety they fixed their eyes upon one or two objects on the land, to watch whether the boat was losing or gaining. That it was still being drawn down by the tide was at once certain; but they yet had a hope that their advance towards the islands might serve to bring them there before it was too late. And now they had fairly reached the crisis of this tremendous struggle. Rousing up the very last of their exhausted strength, they exerted themselves with the convulsive energies of despair, working in silence, with eyes fixed on the shore.

In vain!

They saw themselves drawn down in a line with the lower island, and there, tree by tree, and rock by rock, they saw that island slipping past them; while the distance between them and it had been lessened so slightly that it afforded no prospect whatever of their being able to attain it. At length the last vestige of hope died out. The howling, wrathful vortex was just before them, and now the islands were forgotten, and all their efforts were directed towards saving themselves as long as possible from that fate which they felt was inevitable.

Of the two, Pat was the least affected. Phil was pale, and sat with his eyes glaring at the flood, straining himself at the oars with all his strength, his brows contracted, his lips parted, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps. As for Pat, the ruddy color of his honest but freckled Irish face remained unchanged; and though he was working with all his might, he as yet showed no signs of any very extreme exhaustion; for his muscles were harder, and his frame more inured to labor, than the slender limbs and lighter frame of his companion. Nor did he gasp or sob, nor were his brows contracted, nor was there any other expression on his face than that same jovial, healthy, and withal rather impudent self-confidence which it usually wore.

Yet, if anything could have reduced Pat to despair it was the sight that now appeared immediately before him.

The boat had been dragged for some distance out of the middle of the stream, and was nearer the island than it had been, though still out of reach. The tide was fearfully strong. At every desperate pull the boat would stand still; but between the strokes the tide would bear it down. Thus their efforts only served now to stop the boat for a few moments at every stroke, without in any way ennabling them to elude their fate.

The Falls were close at hand—just in front.

These Falls were not, however, a thunderous cataract, though at the lowest stage of the tide, their furious surges, as they sweep over the rock-strewn descent of the river bed, would be, perhaps, even more dangerous than a cataract itself. But now they were not at their most furious stage. Still, as the boys gazed there, they saw enough to appall them.

All across was a white line of foam. Immediately in front, the water seemed to come in contact with some hidden reef, for it lifted itself up in a heap, and, rounding over, tumbled in thunder on the other side. It was towards this that they were drifting. This was sufficiently formidable, but where the foam tossed and the boiling waters seethed in a long flood of white, it seemed equally so; and thus even if Pat had been inclined to make a choice of some particular place to direct the boat, he would not have been able to select one, since all places appeared equally repellent. The fact was, however, Pat had no such ideas, but was thinking of some other way of encountering the coming fate.

There, then, full before them, was the long line of boiling breakers; there was that upheaving mass of water rounding itself over the sunken ledge. The hiss of the foam was in their ears, while beneath it was the gloomy menace of the roar of many waters.