Once, twice, thrice, I paddled the boat upstream, and again suffered it
to glide, with the river's slow, funereal motion, downward. Silas
Foster had raked up a large mass of stuff, which, as it came towards
the surface, looked somewhat like a flowing garment, but proved to be a
monstrous tuft of water-weeds. Hollingsworth, with a gigantic effort,
upheaved a sunken log. When once free of the bottom, it rose partly
out of water,--all weedy and slimy, a devilish-looking object, which
the moon had not shone upon for half a hundred years,--then plunged
again, and sullenly returned to its old resting-place, for the remnant
of the century.
"That looked ugly!" quoth Silas. "I half thought it was the Evil One,
on the same errand as ourselves,--searching for Zenobia."
"He shall never get her," said I, giving the boat a strong impulse.
"That's not for you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "Pray God he
never has, and never may. Slow work this, however! I should really be
glad to find something! Pshaw! What a notion that is, when the only
good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and grope,
hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our pains! For my
part, I shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her shoe in the
mud, and saved her soul alive, after all. My stars! how she will laugh
at us, to-morrow morning!"
It is indescribable what an image of Zenobia--at the breakfast-table,
full of warm and mirthful life--this surmise of Silas Foster's brought
before my mind. The terrible phantasm of her death was thrown by it
into the remotest and dimmest background, where it seemed to grow as
improbable as a myth.
"Yes, Silas, it may be as you say," cried I. The drift of the stream
had again borne us a little below the stump, when I felt--yes, felt,
for it was as if the iron hook had smote my breast--felt
Hollingsworth's pole strike some object at the bottom of the river!
He started up, and almost overset the boat.
"Hold on!" cried Foster; "you have her!"
Putting a fury of strength into the effort, Hollingsworth heaved amain,
and up came a white swash to the surface of the river. It was the flow
of a woman's garments. A little higher, and we saw her dark hair
streaming down the current. Black River of Death, thou hadst yielded
up thy victim! Zenobia was found!
Silas Foster laid hold of the body; Hollingsworth likewise grappled
with it; and I steered towards the bank, gazing all the while at
Zenobia, whose limbs were swaying in the current close at the boat's
side. Arriving near the shore, we all three stept into the water, bore
her out, and laid her on the ground beneath a tree.