Cameron of Lochiel

by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé

"There's one chance yet, one little chance of saving him," said the old sailor, giving ear to certain sounds which he heard far off to the southward, "and we must be ready for it. The ice is on the point of breaking up in the St. Nicholas, which, as you know, is very rapid. The violence of the flood at that point is likely to crowd the ice of South River over against our shore; and what's more, we shall have no reason to reproach ourselves."

It fell out as Captain Marcheterre predicted. In a moment or two there was a mighty report like a peal of thunder; and the St. Nicholas, bursting madly from its fetters, hurled itself upon the flank of the vast procession of ice floes which, having hitherto encountered no obstacle, were pursuing their triumphant way to the St. Lawrence. It seemed for a moment that the fierce and swift attack, the sudden thrust, was going to pile the greater part of the ice cakes upon the other shore as the captain hoped. The change it wrought was but momentary, for the channel getting choked there was an abrupt halt, and the ice cakes, piling one upon another, took the shape of a lofty rampart. Checked by this obstacle, the waves spread far beyond both shores and flooded the greater part of the village. This sudden deluge, driving the spectators from the banks, destroyed the last hope of poor Dumais.

The struggle was long and obstinate between the angry element and the obstacle which barred its course; but at length the great lake, ceaselessly fed by the main river and the tributaries, rose to the top of the dam, whose foundations it was at the same time eating away from beneath. The barrier, unable to resist the stupendous weight, burst with a roar that shook both banks. As South River widens suddenly below its junction with the St. Nicholas, the unchained mass darted down stream like an arrow, and its course was unimpeded to the cataract.

Dumais had resigned himself to his fate. Calm amid the tumult, his hands crossed upon his breast, his eyes lifted heavenward, he seemed absorbed in contemplation.

The spectators crowded toward the cataract to see the end of the tragedy. Numbers, roused by the alarm bell, had gathered on the other shore and had supplied themselves with torches by stripping off the bark from the cedar rails. The dreadful scene was lighted as if for a festival.

One could see in the distance the long, imposing structure of the manor house, to the southwest of the river. It was built on the top of a knoll overlooking the basin and ran parallel to the falls. About a hundred feet from the manor house rose the roof of a saw mill, the sluice of which was connected with the fall itself. Two hundred feet from the mill, upon the crest of the fall, were sharply outlined the remnants of a little island upon which, for ages, the spring floods had spent their fury. Shorn of its former size—for it had once been a peninsula—the islet was not now more than twelve feet square.

Of all the trees that had once adorned the spot there remained but a single cedar. This veteran, which for so many years had braved the fury of the equinoxes and the ice floods of South River, had half given way before the relentless assaults. Its crown hung sadly over the abyss in which it threatened soon to disappear. Several hundred feet from this islet stood a grist mill, to the northwest of the fall.

Owing to a curve in the shore, the tremendous mass of ice which, drawn by the fall, was darting down the river with frightful speed, crowded all into the channel between the islet and the flour mill, the sluice of which was demolished in a moment. Then the ice cakes, piling themselves against the timbers to the height of the roof, ended by crushing the mill itself as if it had been a house of cards. The ice having taken this direction, the channel between the saw mill and the island was comparatively free.