406 A TEKRIBLE SCENE. 



There was no reasonable man there to put a revolver to 

 this villain's head, and take the rescue from him ; the 

 crowd were, I suppose, horror-stricken, or by the mere 

 force of numbers they might have attended to the good 

 adviser of the boat, and lowered the raft accordingly. 

 Guess the thrill of intense joy in the wretched man's heart 

 when a chance of rescue came, and he heard and saw the 

 raft knock against his slippery little rock. The over 

 whelming force of the tide he had already felt, as it struck 

 him against the place to which he had succeeded in cling 

 ing, and thence, and up to the very instant of time of 

 which I am writing, he had listened to the hoarse roar of 

 the monster just below him, who, the greater part of the 

 night, and all the morning, had seemed to be crying 

 out for him to come. Knowing the force of the tide, 

 he waved his miserable hands and almost fell from his lit 

 tle vantage- ground in the efforts he made to induce the 

 owner of the raft to insure his life by dropping him to the 

 island. He could not know that his suggestion was re 

 fused, he could not know that his signs and the prayers of 

 the by-standers were all in vain ; he stepped on to and 

 clung with the tenacity of an ebbing life to the rope and 

 raft, but in despair, for he found that he was hauled up 

 towards the bridge. Vain were his convulsive grasps, and 

 vain his shrieks ; the edge of the raft, when pulled against 

 the rushing stream, of course succumbed, and with a horri 

 ble flourish the poor wretch was whirled from his last hope 

 of safety to his now certain fate. A strong swimmer, he 

 manfully struck out, in the hope of slantwise reaching the 

 shore. It was a terrible race to see, but soon it was all 

 one way ; the tide prevailed, and he must go over ! Not 

 till he reached that smooth and more than elephantine 

 brow, where the volumed waves of the mighty flow curl 



