Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

"Well, what do you say, mother?" asked Margaret.

Mrs. Mackintosh, to give her daughter an acceptable change and to get her out of her fixed ways, would have sent her to almost anything from balloon ascension to a church lottery.

"Do as you wish, my dear. I think I would like you to go. I do not see how it would be possible for a spectator to know whether the man was suffering or not in those waters, and, as for his sacrificing his life, why that is his own lookout. If he lives I suppose he will get well paid, will he not, Mr. Rankin?"

"They expect he will make about twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars. Arrangements have been made not only with the railways, but also with the hotels for his commission on all profits, which will be paid to him if he lives, or, if not, to his family. I don't know that it should be necessarily looked upon as a suicidal speculation. I have examined the water a good many times, and am by no means certain that his safe passage is impossible, if he can keep on the surface and not get dragged under where the water seems to shoot downward. If he gets through, or even if he tries it and fails, he will prove himself as brave a man as ever lived."

"I think I will go," said Margaret, brightening up with her old love for daring. "It is not like going to a bullfight, and the excitement will be intense."

So they went off on the special, and when they arrived at the rapids, after descending the precipice in the hydraulic lift, they went along the path to the platform where the photographs are taken. This place was filled with seats, numbered and reserved, and Rankin's party were seated in the front row. No less than a hundred thousand people were watching the forces of the river at this time. They were noticing how the precipices gradually converged as they approached the rapids, and how apparent was the downward slope of the water as it rushed through the narrowed gorge. They were noticing how the descending current struck projections of fallen rock at the sides, causing back-waves to wash from each bank diagonally across the main volume of the river, and make a continual combat of waters in the middle of the stream. Here, the deep, irresistible flow of the main current charges into the midst of the battle raging between the lateral surges, and carries them off bodily, while they continue to fight and tear at each other as far as one can see down the river. It is a bewildering spectacle of immeasurable forces, giving the idea of thousands of white horses driven madly into a narrowing gorge, where, in the crush, hundreds are forced upward and ride along on the backs of the others, plunging and flinging their white crests high in the air and gnashing at each other as they go.

The worst spot of all is directly in front of the platform, where Rankin's party was sitting. They waited until the time at which Jackson was advertised to begin his swim, and then they grew impatient. Jack was standing on a wooden parapet near at hand waiting until the swimmer should appear around the bend far up the river, for they could not see him take to the water from the place where they were.

All at once, before the rest of the people near him could see anything, Jack called out: "There he is!" as he descried, with his sailor's eyes, two black specks on the water far away, up above the bridges.

Jackson and his dog had jumped out of a boat in the middle of the river, in the calm part half a mile up, and, as they swam down with the current under the bridges, the dense mass of people there admired the easy grace with which he swam, and remarked the whiteness of his skin. His dog, a huge creature, half Great Dane and half Newfoundland, swam in front of him, directed by his voice. Both of them could be seen to raise themselves once or twice, so that they could get a better view of the wild water in front of them. The dog recognized the danger, and for a moment turned toward the shore and barked; but his master raised his hand and directed him onward. Another moment, now, and the fight for life began, for reaching the shore was as impossible as flying to the moon.

The first back-wash that came to them was a small one, and they both passed through it, each receiving the water in the face. The next wash followed almost immediately, and they tried to swim over it, but it turned both man and dog over on their sides and spread them out at full length on the surface of the main current. The people on the suspension bridge could see that both received a terrible blow. They both seemed to dive under the next wave, and then the water became so turbulent and the speed of their passage so great that it was impossible to give a minute description of what happened.