The painter is slipped, and the boat’s head is turned riverwards. She is soon out of the slack, and feels the full force of the flood. The starting-point was nearly a mile and a half above the township, so that there was a liberal margin for drift. The river was quite a mile wide. There was still a quantity of driftwood, and many difficulties beset them which made delicate steering and skilful management incumbent. When they had travelled about half the distance, Tom, who was eagerly conning the other shore, gave a shout, pointing at the same time to a headland above the village.
"Some ’un’s waving! See ’em, over there!"
Mrs. Blain was the first to spy the advancing boat. The boys’ mothers had been trapsing the lagoon shore and river-side for hours, in a semi-demented manner. The minister and the others had returned after a fruitless errand. The police, with a strong crew in the Government whale-boat, were scouring the shores in the vicinity of the Bend, and had not returned. The disappearance of the boys had seemed most mysterious until the break-away was discovered. Then the accident as it really happened was immediately conjectured. The profoundest sensation was created in the village, for the boys were dearly loved by all.
The feelings of the poor parents may be but faintly imagined. Great was the relief, therefore, when Mrs. Blain, whose eyes were devouring the flood waters in her frantic eagerness to discover some hopeful sign, suddenly screamed out in an alarming manner, gesticulating wildly as she did so, and acting to outward seeming in a frenzied fashion. Other searchers, scattered along the river-bank, hearing the piercing cry, and seeing the untoward gestures of the joy-possessed woman, came running towards her, thinking for the moment that she had lost her reason.
"See, see!" screamed she, pointing to a distant spot on the waters. "They’re saved, they’re saved! God be praised, our lovely boys are returning all safe; yes, one, two, three, four—the darlings."
Looking in the direction indicated, the neighbours saw, far out on the wild, impetuous, wreckage-strewn waters, a tiny boat with four slight figures running the blockade; threading their course between the thousand objects which intervene and threaten destruction.