To one uninformed, a pow-wow of Indians might have been supposed to be going on. There were shrieks and wails, and screams of laughter, and cries of terror. There were threatenings, scoldings, and coaxings. Were all the grammars in the world made up of interjections they could scarcely have contained the list that rent the air, between the two Mississippi shores, upon that eventful night. The heavens were still above, though they might have been supposed to have disappeared entirely, so loudly and fervently were they invoked.
"Why, it is enough to raise the dead," exclaimed a solitary traveler, a stranger in town, perambulating a neighboring bluff.
As the vociferating army neared the opposite shore, there was a momentary silence; that breathless silence which precedes the storm. Then uprose such a terrific scream, such a commingled shout of horror, as only frightened women can give vent to. This brought men, women and children in throngs to the scene. Some leaped into boats, some walked in to the rescue. The majority awaited ashore the unfolding of events.
Mrs. Sharp had caught her foot in something as she was about to ascend the opposite bank. In attempting to save herself, she fell with her hands upon the soggy substance that had intercepted her. She was a thorough-going woman, and determined to ascertain what lay like a log in her path, the water scarcely covering it. She prevailed upon two or three to assist her in dragging it upward partially to the dim light—when lo! within a saturated, slimy bed-comforter was a human form! It was brought across to Windsor, officials summoned, and, despite decomposition and fearful change, recognized to be the remains of Thornton Rush! There was great sensation, and a faint revival of whispers about his having been spirited away to his death by Popish emissaries; but these soon died, for want of breath, as the Irishman would say.
The death of Mr. Rush was, by the majority, accounted for naturally. In his delirium he had strayed he knew not whither. He had grasped the heavy quilt tightly around him, which, held firmer in the clasp of the dead, had filled with water, and prevented the body from rising.
It seemed unaccountable that when the river was dragged it should not have been discovered: are not mysteries, however, every day transpiring before our eyes, about which we marvel in vain?