And now he was in the middle of it! It was the worst place—they knew it from their previous experience! He seemed not to advance, but, instead, gradually to lose headway.—But the terrace was still below him; if he overcame the middle of the current, he could, he must succeed!—And now he was gaining ground perceptibly—nearer and nearer, foot by foot—in a diagonal curved line toward the terrace!—
Rough, quarrelsome fellows who had been enemies all their lives, had clasped hands; women fell sighing into each other's arms. A gentleman with short gray hair and heavy gray mustache, who had just run up from the village, taking his stand close by the burning willows, almost enveloped by their flames, had followed the swimmer with steady gaze and with fervent prayers and promises—that everything, everything, should be forgiven and forgotten, if only he should have him back again, his dear, heroic son!—He now cried out aloud—a terrible cry which the storm carried away and hurled down upon the shore where the men were standing who held the line, shouting to them to pull back—back—back!—It was too late!
Then down came the mighty fir-tree, at the foot of which the swimmer had sat an hour before—torn loose by the storm, hurled into the flood, rolling on in the whirlpool of the stream, like a giant emerging from the deep, now turning up its mighty roots which still held the rock in their grasp, and now the top; now rising erect as it had once stood in the light of the sun, and in the next moment crashing down upon the swimmer—then plunging with its top into the foaming currents and turning its roots upward as it hurried out of the light into the darker night.
They drew him back, as, strangely enough, the thin line had not broken—a dead man, at whose side, as he lay stretched out upon the shore (he had only a wide, gaping wound above his brow, like one who had died an honorable cavalryman's death) the old man with the gray mustache knelt down, kissed him upon the beautiful, pale lips, and then rose up.—"Now give me the line! It was my son! And over there is my daughter!"
It seemed madness! The young man—they had seen how he struggled!—But the old man!—Though he was old, he was nevertheless a large man, with broad high chest. He threw off his coat and vest.
"If you find, General, that you cannot hold out, give us the sign at the right time," said the Burgess.
And now something like a miracle appeared to those who, in this short hour, had passed through such strange, horrible, fearful experiences!
The willow torches, which were all blazing at once from the roots to the spreading branches, cast a brightness almost like that of day upon the shore, upon the multitude, the stream, the terrace beyond—far into the flooded park, up to the castle, the windows of which here and there flashed red in the reflection of the fire.
In this light, along the narrow stream upon the bottom of which the village children had formerly played, rolling like balls from the edge of the slope to the bottom—along this foaming water-course down which the spreading fir-tree was still tossing like a monster of the sea; seizing its prey with a hundred arms, sped a slender beautiful boat, which had disembarked a strange cargo at the rear landing-place of the castle, as at a dock. There they had heard how matters stood, and the man at the helm had said: "Children, it is my betrothed!" And the six with him had cried: "Hurrah for the Commander!" and "Hurrah for his betrothed!" So they now shot past with lowered mast, while the six seamen held the oars in place as in a flag-boat which brings an admiral to shore. And the flag fluttered behind the man at the helm, as with the gentle pressure of his strong hand he steered the obedient craft through the mighty swells to the point which his clear unfailing eyes kept in view, as an eagle does his prey, although his courageous heart was beating furiously in his breast.
And they shot past—on, past the multitude, which gazed breathlessly at the miracle, on, by the terrace—but only a short distance; for the man at the helm brought the boat about like an eagle in its flight, and the six seamen dipped their oars all at one stroke—and then—Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!—the oars shot up again, and the boat lay alongside the terrace, over which and the boat a gigantic wave rolled its foaming comb toward the shore, and there, subsiding, dashed the foam into the burning trees, enveloping the breathless observers on the shore in a cloud of spray; and, as the cloud dissipated, they saw, in the dim light of the extinguished fire, no longer the terrace—and the boat only as it were a shadow, which disappeared to the right in the darkness.