self on some of the timbers or blocks of ice which are
buoyant enough to support a dozen men."

"All that is very true," replied the policeman, who seemed to have
thought of everything; "and I don't deny that there is just the barest
possibility in the world that you're right. But you mustn't forget that
the roof of the bridge was over him, and has shut out the chance of his
helping himself. Don't you believe that, if he was alive, he would have
answered the calls that Jack made to him? Jack has a voice like a
fog-horn, and Ben would have heard him if he was able to hear anything."

This view of the case staggered me, and I hardly knew what to say, except
to suggest that possibly Ben had answered the call, and was unheard in
the rushing waters; but the officer shook his head, and I confess I
shared his doubts.

"Just as the splintering timbers went down, Jack did hear the shout of
Ben; he heard, too, the scream of a woman, and that awful cry which a
horse sometimes makes when in the very extremity of peril, but that was
all."

I could not sleep after such horrifying tidings, when the policeman had
gone; I went into the house and donned my overshoes and rubber coat.
Fortunately my family had not been awakened by the ringing of the bell,
and I did not disturb them; but, carefully closing and locking the door
after me, I went out in the storm and darkness, oppressed by a grief
which I had not known for years, for Ben Mayberry was as dear to me as my
own son, and my heart bled for the stricken mother who, when she most
needed a staff to lean upon during her declining years, found it cruelly
snatched from her.

CHAPTER VI

"TELL MOTHER I AM ALL RIGHT"

There is a fascination in the presence of danger which we all feel. The
news of the dreadful disaster spread with astonishing rapidity, and when
I reached the river-side it seemed as if all Damietta were there.

The lamps twinkled in the hands of innumerable men moving hither and
thither in that restless manner which showed how deep their feelings
were. People were talking in guarded voices, as if the shadow of an awful
danger impended over them, and the wildest rumors, as is the case at such
times, were afloat. It was said that six, eight, and a dozen persons had
gone down with the bridge and were irrecoverably lost. Other structures
above us were carried away (though no one stopped to explain how the
tidings had reached ahead of the flood itself), and it was