The canoe swung sullenly round, then darted like a bird towards destruction. It struck also upon the black rock, where spray flew high in clouds. Round again, gradually quickening in speed. Sideways it floated to the awful white line which marked eternity.
Her heart seemed to have ceased its feeble beat; the breath stifled her with hot gasps. Sky, river, forest had vanished, blotted out by a raging sea of red flames, boiling and hissing blood-like before her eyes. Memory came back on the torrent of that grim flood. The past lay outspread before the mind. Every small detail shot forth in sharp relief, each careless action writhed from the seething atmosphere of her horror and imagination.
'This is Death! How awful a thing it is.'
The cold winds snatched the foam from the waves, and tossed it above rock masses in furious revelry. The canoe had reached that awful line which marked the extinction of two lives. It shuddered upon the fearful brink. It hovered, like a bird of prey, before making the fatal plunge beneath. It trembled, and groaned again with the angry buffetings. It succumbed to the irresistible force, to the mighty, unseen hand drawing it down, down—and then—ah, then—
At the foot of the great rapids black rocks glistened in the moonlight; foam-flecked waves darted up to beat the air; angry waters rolled and tossed like wind-swept snow heaps, crying forth with the deep voice of thunder. Ice crystals still danced and shivered in the biting wind.
A blood-red gleam slowly fought its way from the north, ascending the heavens to dye the shafts of the auroral light a bright rose colour.
On either side of the river, black pines swayed beneath the eternal whisperings of the forest. The grim hand of winter slowly fringed the sombre tresses with silvery beauty.
The colours were black and silver, with red above. The blending of the first two made the complexion of mourning. Is not the last the colour of life's mystery? Red gold, red blood, red flush of shame, red blush of love. What else is there in life worth taking?
Onward rushed the Great Saskatchewan, with a sobbing and murmuring, while loose shingle hissed and rattled upon the shore, and leafless bushes swept the waters. Then the ice lord crept from drear confines of the Arctic, with the great chains in his white hand. Soon would he fasten down those clamouring waves to a long silence.