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."
Suthin' had got into the old fellow's eye,--suthin' saline and
acrid,--namely, a tear.
"It's a woman," says Wheelwright,--and suthin' of the same kind blinded
him also.
Almost sunset now. But the air was suddenly filled with perplexing
snow-dust from a heavy squall. A white curtain dropped between the
anxious watchers on the wharf and the boatmen.
The same white curtain hid the dark floating object from its pursuers.
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