“Plenty of boats are out already,” said another; “they’ll be seen after.”
“There’s room for one more,” replied the clergyman quietly, “and I didn’t win the silver oar in the single-scull race at college for nothing. Look up on the hills there, black with refugees from the water! Who will help me to bring them off?”
Not one, but three boat’s crews were immediately at his service, and more would have been forthcoming had the boats at command been more numerous.
“You, Louis? I don’t know,” said the clergyman kindly, as the boy pressed to his side. “What would your father say to me?”
“I shall go too,” said Karl Metzerott.
The rain beat fiercely down upon the seething river, the wind churned the foul waters into foam which it dashed in their faces as if in bitter mockery of their pitiful attempts to brave the power of the elements; beams and timbers, heavy enough to grind their boats into powder, shouldered each other down the stream, and impeded each other’s progress, as though they had been human beings engaged in the race for wealth. Over all lay darkness, for the gasworks were long since under water, but the feeble light of the lanterns they had brought flashed now on a man’s face set in the agony of death, the open eyes staring upward as if in accusation; now on heavy tresses of a woman’s long wet hair, wrapped by the wind round and round the beam to which she had clung till her strength failed her.
“Boys!” said Mr. Clare.
He stood to windward of them, and his every word could be distinctly heard. The men paused in the very act of manning the boats, and turned to look at him. His hat was off, and the lantern in his hand flashed fitfully, as it was beaten by the wind, upon his pure, strong face, and the eyes fixed upon them in longing tenderness, as though they also were in danger and needed rescue.
“Let us pray,” said Mr. Clare.
Certainly Fritz Rolf set the example, but no man there waited to find it out. Every hat was off in an instant.