e to that from which we were idly and uselessly looking on, and
go gallantly over the surging torrent toward the sinking men. We feared,
however, that it would not be in time to save them, as their cries for
help grew fainter and fainter, till each one, we thought, would have
been their last. We saw that the oar, with the drowning men clinging to
it, was floating rapidly down the middle of the stream, which, in this
particular locality, is more than a quarter of a mile in breadth, and
would inevitably, in two or three minutes more, be in the white water
among the breakers, when their fate must be sealed, and the boat, if it
followed, dashed to pieces among the rocks. This was the principal point
of danger, and they had to run down within a most fearful proximity of
it, to cross the course down which the drowning men were drifting, and,
as they did so, to seize hold of them without losing their own headway;
for there was not time for that. They succeeded in shooting athwart the
current, rapid as it was, just below the men. With breathless and
painful anxiety we saw them execute this dangerous manoeuver. We saw the
ferryman lean over the side of his boat, for a moment, as it passed
them, while his sister backed water with her oar.

"They are saved!" some one said, close behind me, in a whisper so deep
and earnest that I started, and turned to look at the speaker; when
another, who heard him, exclaimed, "No, no! they are gone! they are
lost! the boat has left them!" And sure enough, it had. But, in an
instant afterward, just as we thought they were about to be driven into
the fatal breakers, they turned, to our inexpressible delight, as if
drawn by some invisible power (the rope the ferryman had attached to the
oar was, indeed, invisible to us,) and followed the boat.

The ferryman and his sister had yet to pull a fearful distance for the
time they had to do it in, to get out of that part of the current
leading to the breakers: and they accomplished it. The man had the bow
oar, and we could see the tough ash bend like a willow-wand as he
stretched out to keep the head of the boat partially up the stream. His
sister, too, "kept her own," and the little punt shot out rapidly into
the comparatively quiet stream, beyond the influence of the fearful
current, which was rapidly driving them upon the breakers. When this was
accomplished, our fears for the noble-hearted brother and sister were at
an end, and we took a long breath;