"I'll try it, anyhow," says Feodor, resolutely. "God cares for those who care for each other. I'll just run and get out my boat."
But as he was starting off to do so, a shout from the rest made him turn his head, and he saw something that stopped him short.
Just abreast of the spot where they stood three or four small islets, or rather sand-banks, lay close together in the centre of the stream. The huge fragment of ice upon which the man was crouching, turned sideways by the current, had just run upon the end of one of these banks, where it stuck fast.
"Now's the time," shouted Feodor, springing forward; "not a moment to be lost. A rope and a pole—quick!"
He was obeyed at once; for these rough fellows seemed to feel instinctively that he was the man for the occasion, and had a right to take the command. He twisted one end of the rope around his left arm, and running a little way up the bank, threw the other end to those who followed him, grasped the pole in his right hand, and bounded like a deer on to the nearest ice-block, the in-drawn breath of the excited lookers-on sounding like a hiss amid the dead silence.
Had any artist been there to paint the scene, it would have made a very striking picture. The sky had darkened suddenly, and a cheerless gloom brooded over the sullen river with its drifting ice, and the bare sandy ridges on either side, and the helpless figure stranded upon the islet, and the daring man winning his perilous way over the treacherous surface, and the group of anxious watchers on the shore, while the wind moaned drearily through the leafless trees, like a warning of coming evil.
But Feodor was not the man to be frightened by any such fancies, and on he went in gallant style, springing lightly from block to block, while the ice creaked and groaned beneath his weight, and the water splashed up all around him. Twice a cry of dismay burst from his comrades, as the ice upon which he leaped gave way under his feet. Once his way was barred by a gap too broad to be cleared; but with his pole he drew a passing fragment within reach, stepped upon it, and went forward again.
But now came a new peril. The stranded mass of ice for which he was aiming, thus stuck fast in the midst of the stream, formed a kind of breakwater, behind which the smaller lumps began to accumulate; and several of these, driven by the current beneath the great sheet, forced one end of it up, while the other was held fast by the sand-bank. Such a strain was too great to be long endured. Just as Feodor was almost within reach of the helpless man, the ice-floe upon which the latter lay split in two with a deafening crash, and the pent-up masses behind, all breaking loose at once, came down upon Feodor like an avalanche.
"God help him, he's lost!" muttered an old peasant, clasping his hands.
But Feodor was not to be caught so easily. Quick as lightning he planted the end of his pole on the nearest block, and with one bound was safe upon the islet, just as the ice torrent went rushing and roaring past. The next moment his hand was on the shoulder of the prostrate man.