Not one moment to lose! The shattering of broad sheets of ice around them was a warning of what might happen to the frail support of their chase. One thrust of the boat-hook sometimes cleft a cake that to the eye seemed stout enough to bear a heavier weight than a woman's.
Not one moment to spare! The dark figure, now drifted far below the hemlocks of the Point, no longer stirred. It seemed to have sunk upon the ice and to be resting there weary and helpless, on one side a wide way of lurid water, on the other half a mile of moving desolation.
Far to go, and no time to waste!
"Give way, Bill! Give way!"
"Ay, ay!"
Both spoke in low tones, hardly louder than the whisper of the ice around them.
By this time hundreds from the Foundry and the village were swarming upon the wharf and the steamboat.
"A hunderd tar-barrels wouldn't git up my steam in time to do any good," says Cap'n Ambuster. "If them two in my skiff don't overhaul the man, he's gone."
"You're sure it's a man?" says Smith Wheelwright.
"Take a squint through my glass. I'm dreffully afeard it's a gal; but suthin's got into my eye, so I can't see."