"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. There was nothing in sight to steer by, now.
Wade steered by his last glimpse,--by the current,--by the rush of the roaring wind,--by instinct.
How merciful that in such a moment a man is spared the agony of thought! His agony goes into action, intense as life.
It was bitterly cold. A swash of ice-water filled the bottom of the skiff. She was low enough down without that. They could not stop to bail, and the miniature icebergs they passed began to look significantly over the gunwale. Which would come to the point of foundering first, the boat or the little floe it aimed for?
Bitterly cold! The snow hardly melted upon Tarbox's bare hands. His fingers stiffened to the oars; but there was life in them still, and still he did his work, and never turned to see how the steersman was doing his.
A flight of crows came sailing with the snow-squall. They alighted all about on the hummocks, and curiously watched the two men battling to save life. One black impish bird, more malignant or more sympathetic than his fellows, ventured to poise on the skiff's stern!
Bill hissed off this third passenger. The crow rose on its toes, let the boat slide away from under him, and followed croaking dismal good wishes.
The last sunbeams were now cutting in everywhere. The thick snow-flurry was like a luminous cloud. Suddenly it drew aside.
The industrious skiff had steered so well and made such headway, that there, a hundred yards away, safe still, not gone, thank God! was the woman they sought.
A dusky mass flung together on a waning rood of ice,--Wade could see nothing more.
Weary or benumbed, or sick with pure forlornness and despair, she had drooped down and showed no sign of life.
The great wind shook the river. Her waning rood of ice narrowed, foot by foot, like an unthrifty man's heritage. Inch by inch its edges wore away, until the little space that half-sustained the dark heap was no bigger than a coffin-lid.