judge, made me
conclude that the ice on this side must be comparatively good, while my
own journey had proved that on the Quebec side it was utterly
impossible for a horse to go.

As they reached the channel where the crumbled ice-blocks lay floating,
heaped up as I have described, the sleigh stopped, and the driver
looked anxiously around. At that very instant there came one of those
low, dull, grinding sounds I have already mentioned, but very much
louder than any that I had hitherto heard. Deep, angry thuds followed,
and crunching sounds, while beneath all there arose a solemn murmur
like the "voice of many waters." I felt the ice heave under my feet,
and sway in long, slow undulations, and one thought, quick as
lightning, flashed horribly into my mind. Instinctively I leaped
forward toward my destination, while the ice rolled and heaved beneath
me, and the dread sounds grew louder at every step.

Scarcely had I gone a dozen paces when a piercing scream arrested me. I
stopped and looked back. For a few moments only had I turned away, yet
in that short interval a fearful change had taken place. The long ridge
of ice which had been heaped up in the mid-channel had increased to
thrice its former height, and the crunching and grinding of the vast
masses arose above the roaring of the storm. Far up the river there
came a deeper and fuller sound of the same kind, which, brought down by
the wind, burst with increasing terrors upon the ear. The ridge of ice
was in constant motion, being pressed and heaped up in ever-increasing
masses, and, as it heaped itself up, toppling over and falling with a
noise like thunder. There could be but one cause for all this, and the
fear which had already flashed through my brain was now confirmed to my
sight. The ice on which I stood was breaking up!

As all this burst upon my sight, I saw the sleigh. The horse had
stopped in front of the ridge of ice in the mid-channel, and was
rearing and plunging violently. The driver was lashing furiously and
trying to turn the animal, which, frenzied by terror, and maddened by
the stinging sleet, refused to obey, and would only rear and kick.
Suddenly the ice under the sleigh sank down, and a flood of water
rolled over it, followed by an avalanche of ice-blocks which had
tumbled from the ridge. With a wild snort of terror, the horse turned,
whirling round the sleigh, and with the speed of the wind dashed back
toward the shore. As the sleigh came nea