With the skilled eye of an old river-driver he soon discovered the "key." Right beneath him lay the log that could unlock the huge, groaning gateway, and let the impeded tide sweep safely down the valley. Duncan leaned forward and pried at it with his pole, putting into the work a strange strength he had not felt for many a year. The mass creaked ominously. A gust of wind caught his old Scotch bonnet, sending it whirling away into the darkness and tossing his white hair. He struggled on, throwing his whole weight upon the pole with a desperate energy, and praying with all the passion of his soul that the High Priest would accept his humble sacrifice. The great hope that perhaps he would be considered worthy to imitate, even in the feeblest manner, the atonement that his Master had made was filling him and lending his arm an unnatural strength. Behind him the waters surged and the piling logs boomed threateningly. But to Duncan there was no menace in the sound. It brought to his mind the words of his favourite psalm, as Peter McNabb sang it in the little church by the river,
"The Lord's voice on the waters is;
The God of Majesty
Doth thunder—"
"Oh, my Father, my Father!" he was praying with passionate fervour, as he struggled with the stubborn beam, "accept this poor sacrifice, and may Donal' and my father's Glen be saved!"
The answer came in a thunderous roar. Like a wild animal let loose, the wall of lumber leaped up and hurled itself forward. It caught the old man as if he had been a feather and flung him away into the whirling blackness. For an instant his white hair shone out like a snowflake on the dark river, for an instant only, and then the great billow of liberated water came roaring forward and swept over him on its way down the valley.
XVI
THE COVENANT RENEWED
The party from the village which arrived at the Narrows, armed with lanterns, cant-hooks and poles, only to find the jam broken, searched all night for the man who had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his own. The news of the heroic act and the averted disaster spread swiftly, and all night long lights wandered up and down and shout answered shout across the dark water.
There were many very sorrowful hearts among the searchers, but none so heavy as was borne by an old man who kept apart from the crowd. He stumbled along in a bewildered fashion over rocks and underbrush, his cap gone, his grey hair dishevelled by the wind. He paused often to peer over the swollen waters, and Peter McNabb's heart was smitten with pity as he passed him once and heard him whisper, "Duncan, lad, whaur are ye?"
And it was Andrew Johnstone who found him. Just as the first grey light of the morning stole in at the eastern doorway of the valley he came upon him, lying peacefully beneath the overhanging willows, beside the churchyard. It seemed fitting that Duncan Polite should have found a harbour in the shelter of his Zion, the place that had been the centre of all his hopes.