Why, oh why, could those beams
not speak and tell her what they saw; why could they not bring her some
message from the absent one! She had never felt like this before, she
had never felt so restless, so uneasy. It was impossible to think of
sleep; she would pray still longer. Perhaps the boy needed her prayers;
perhaps he was in danger, danger of body, danger of soul, and needed her
help. Her rosary in her fingers, she knelt by the window praying,
praying, while the moonbeams danced and played around the kneeling
figure. Perhaps it was just as well they could not speak and tell her
what they saw out there upon the river. Perhaps they were trying to tell
her and could not; trying to tell her of the three men, one of whom was
scarce more than a boy, struggling out there in the icy water,
struggling for life as the current sought to drag them down beneath the
frozen surface. Their fingers clutched desperately at the ragged edges
of the ice that had broken through with them and cracked and crumbled
away at their touch.
Now but two figures were visible to the watching moonbeams; one had been
dragged down into the black waters, down to his death in the freezing
depths below.
For a moment a cloud covered the moon's face obscuring its view of
things terrestrial. When it passed and that scene upon the river was
once more visible, only one figure remained still struggling bravely;
still clutching at the slippery, crackling ice; still fighting, not for
life alone, but for his soul's salvation.
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