While floating thus, held tightly in the grasp of my companion, his deep breathing fanning my cheek, I felt my senses gradually becoming wrapt with a sweet dream, and so quickly did it steal upon me, that in a few moments all the peril of our position was veiled from my mind, and I was reveling in a delightful illusion. I was floating upon an undulating field of ice, in a triumphal car, drawn by snow-white steeds, and in my path glittered a myriad gems of the icy north. My progress seemed to be as quiet as the falling of the snow-flake, and swift as the wind, which appeared drawn along with my chariot-wheels. To add to this dreamy delight, many forms of beauty, symmetrical as angels, with eyes radiant as the stars of night, floated around my pathway. Though their forms appeared superior to earth, the tender expression of their eyes was altogether human. Their ethereal forms were clad in flowing robes, white as the wintry drift; coronets of icy jewels circled their brows, and glittered upon their graceful necks; their golden hair floated upon the sportive wind, as if composed of the sun's bright rays, and the effect upon the infatuated gazer at these spirit-like creations, was a desire not to break the spell, lest they should vanish from before his entranced vision. To add to the charm of their power they burst into music wild as the elements, but yet so plaintively sweet, that the senses yielded up in utter abandon to its soothing swell. I had neither the power nor the wish to move, but under the influence of this ravishing dream, floated along in happy silence, a blest being, attended by an angel throng, whose voluptuous forms delighted, and whose pleasing voices lulled into all the joys of fancied elysium.
From this dream I was aroused to the most painful sensations. The pangs of death can bear no comparison to the agony of throwing off this sleep. Action was attended with torture, and every move of my blood seemed as if molten lead was coursing through my veins. My companion, by every means he could think of, was forcing me back to consciousness; but I clung with the tenacity of death to my sweet dream. He dashed my body upon our floating island; he pinched my flesh, fastened his fingers into my hair, and beat me into feeling with the power of his muscular arm. Slowly the figures of my dream began to change—my triumphal car vanished—dark night succeeded the soft light which had before floated around me, and the fair forms, which had fascinated my soul by their beauty, were now changed into furies, whose voices mingling in the howl of the elements, sounded like a wail of sorrow, or a chaunt of rage. They looked into my eyes with orbs lit by burning hatred, while they seemed to lash me with whips of the biting wind, until every fibre in my frame was convulsed with rage and madness. I screamed with anguish, and grasping the muscular form of my companion, amid the loud howl of the storm, amid the roar of the crushing ice, amid the gloom of dark night upon that uncertain platform of the congealed yet moving waters, I fought with him, and struggled for the mastery. I rained blows upon his body, and he returned them with interest. I tried to plunge with him into the dark waters that were bubbling around us, but he held me back as if I were a child; and in impotent rage I wept at my weakness. Slowly our perilous situation again forced itself upon my mind. I became conscious that a platform, brittle as the thread of life, was all that separated me from a watery grave; and I fancied the wind was murmuring our requiem as it passed. Hope died within me; but not so my companion.
"Speak to me!" he cried; "arouse, and let me hear your voice! Shake off this stupor, or you are lost!"
"Why did you wake me?" I inquired; "while in that lethargy I was happy."
"While there is hope you should never yield to despair," said Victor. "I discovered you freezing in my arms. Come, arouse yourself more fully; Providence has designed us for another grave than the waters of Lake St. Clair, or ere this we would have been quietly resting in some of the chasms beneath. We are floating rapidly into the river, and will here find some chance to escape."
"Here, at last," answered I, despondingly, "we are likely to find our resting-place."
"Shake off this despondency!" exclaimed Victor, "it is unmanly. If we are to die, let it be in a struggle against death. We have now only to avoid being crushed between the fields of ice. Oh! that unfortunate lantern! if we had only retained it—but no matter, we will escape yet; aye, and have another dance among our friends in yonder old hospitable mansion. Courage!" he exclaimed, "see, lights are dancing opposite us upon the shore. Hark! I hear shouts."
A murmur, as of the expiring sound of a shout rose above the roar of the ice and waters—but it failed to arouse me. The lights, though, we soon plainly discerned; and on the bluff, at the very mouth of the river, a column of flame began to rise, which cast a lurid light far over the surface of the raging lake. Some persons stood at the edge of the flood waving lighted torches; and I thought from their manner that we were discovered.
"We are safe, thank God!" says Victor. "They have discovered us!"
Hope revived again within me, and my muscles regained their strength. We were only distant about one hundred yards from shore, and rapidly nearing it, when a scene commenced, which, for the wildly terrific, exceeded aught I had ever before beheld. The force of the wind and the current had driven vast fields of ice into the mouth of the river, where it now gorged; and with frightful rapidity, and a stunning noise, the ice began to pile up in masses of several feet in height, until the channel was entirely obstructed. The dammed-up waters here boiled and bubbled, seeking a passage, and crumbling the barrier which impeded their way, dashed against it, and over it, in the mad endeavor to rush onward. The persons seen a few moments before were driven up to the bluff; and they no sooner reached there than Victor and myself, struggling amid the breaking ice and the rising flood, gained the shore; but in vain did we seek a spot upon the perpendicular sides of the bluff, where, for an instant, we could rest from the struggle. We shouted to those above, and they hailed us with a cheer, flashed their torches over our heads—but they had no power to aid us, for the ground they stood upon was thirty feet above us. Even while we were thus struggling, and with our arms outstretched toward heaven, imploring aid, the gorge, with a sound like the rumbling of an earth-quake, broke away, and swept us along in its dreadful course. Now did it seem, indeed, as if we had been tempted with hope, only that we might feel to its full extent of poignancy the bitterness of absolute despair. I yielded in hopeless inactivity to the current; my companion, in the meantime, was separated from me—and I felt as if fate had singled out me, alone, as the victim; but, while thus yielding to despondency, Victor again appeared at my side, and held me within his powerful grasp. He seized me as I was about to sink through exhaustion, and dragging me after him, with superhuman strength he leaped across the floating masses of ice, recklessly and boldly daring the death that menaced us. We neared the shore where it was low; and all at once, directly before us, shot up another beacon, and a dozen torches flashed up beside it. The river again gorged below us, and the accumulating flood and ice bore us forward full fifty feet beyond the river's brink—as before, the tide again swept away the barrier, leaving us lying among the fragments of ice deposited by the retreating flood, which dashed on its course, foaming, and roaring, and flashing in the light of the blazing beacons. Locked in each other's arms, and trembling with excitement, we lay collecting our scattered senses, and endeavoring to divest us of the terrible thought that we were still at the mercy of the flood. Our friends, who had learned from the negroes the mad adventure we had started upon, now gathered around us, lifted us up from our prostrate position, and moved toward Yesson's mansion. Victor, who through the whole struggle had borne himself up with that firmness which scorns to shrink before danger, now yielded, and sunk insensible. The excitement was at an end, and the strong man had become a child. I, feeble in body, and lacking his energy in danger, now that the peril was past, felt a buoyancy and strength which I did not possess at starting out.