With a reckless pride that would not own my fears, even though death hung on my footsteps, I answered with a scornful laugh,
"Your own fears, and not mine, counsel you to such a proceeding."
"Say you so," says he, "then we will hold on until we cross the lake;" and with a shout he pressed forward; bending my head to the blast, I followed.
I had often heard of the suddenness with which Lake St. Clair cast off its winter covering, when visited by a southern breeze; and whether the heat of my excitement, or an actual moderation of cold in the wind sweeping over us was the fact, I am unable to determine, but I fancied its puff upon my cheek had grown soft and balmy in its character; a few drops of rain accompanied it, borne along as forerunners of a storm. While we thus journeyed, a sound like the reverberation of distant thunder again smote upon our ears, and shook the ice beneath our feet. We suddenly halted.
"There is no mistaking that," said Victor. "The ice is breaking up—we will pursue this folly no further."
He had scarcely ceased speaking, when a report, like that of cannon, was heard in our immediate neighborhood, and a wide crevice opened at our very feet, through which the agitated waters underneath bubbled up. We leaped it, and rushed forward.
"Haste!" cried my companion, "there is sufficient time for us yet to reach the shore before the surface moves."
"Time, for us, Victor," replied I, "is near an end—if we ever reach the shore, it will be floating lifeless amid the ice."
"Courage," says he, "do not despond;" and seizing my arm, we moved with speed in the direction where lights streamed from the gay and pleasant mansion which we had so madly left. Ah, how with mingled hope and fear our hearts beats, as with straining eyes we looked toward that beacon. In an instant, even as we sped along, the ice opened again before us, and ere I could check my impetus, I was, with the lantern in my hand, plunged within the flood. My companion retained his hold of me, and with herculean strength he dragged me from the dark tide upon the frail floor over which we had been speeding. In the struggle, the lantern fell from my grasp, and sunk within the whirling waters.
"Great God!" exclaimed Victor, "the field we stand upon is moving!"—and so it was. The mass closed up the gap into which I had fallen; and we could hear the edges which formed the brink of the chasm, crushing and crumbling as they moved together in the conflict. We stood breathlessly clinging to each other, listening to the mad fury of the wind, and the awful roar of the ice which broke and surged around us. The wind moaned by us and above our heads like the wail of nature in an agony, while mingling with its voice could be distinctly heard the ominous reverberations which proclaimed a general breaking up of the whole surface of the lake. The wind and current were both driving the ice toward the Detroit river, and we could see by the lights on the shore that we were rapidly passing in that direction. A dark line, scarcely discernible, revealed where the distant shore narrowed into the straight; but the hope of ever reaching it died within me, as our small platform rose and sunk on the troubled waves.