University of Virginia Library

A NIGHT
ON THE
TERRAPIN ROCKS.

1. CHAPTER I.

All persons who have visited Niagara
(and who has not?) are aware, that the rocks
stretching in a broken chain from Goat Island
far out into the Horseshoe Fall, giving
foundation to the bridge by which the visiter
reaches the brink of the cataract, are designated
as the Terrapin Rocks—a name scarce
worthy the dignity of their position, but rendered
somewhat appropriate by a resemblance,
which fancy readily traces in them,
to a cluster of gigantic turtles, sprawling in

the torrent. They lie confusedly along the
verge of the watery precipice, extending a
distance of a hundred yards or more from the
island, of which they seem to have formed
originally a part—the ruins of a jutting promontory
long since washed away. The
bridge—a low path of logs and planks, as is
well known—gives access to many of these
fragments: others again may be reached
without such assistance, from the island: and
the adventurous spirit, tempted by the very
wildness of the exploit, will often seek among
them some convenient perch, where, poised
perhaps over the tremendous gulf, with the
flood on either side of him, shooting furiously
by, he enjoys a spectacle of unequalled magnificence
in itself, and to which the feelings
inspired by the situation add double sublimity.

The bridge, at its termination, projects
several feet over the fall; and here the visiter
may enjoy both the scene and the excitement
of a half-fancied peril, without encountering
the risk, which would certainly attend a
scramble among the rocks, by any one not
having his nervous propensities under full
command. A fall—the consequence of a
single mis-step—into a current that rather

darts than runs, and a whirl down an abyss
of a hundred and sixty feet perpendicular
depth—are consequences that may easily
happen; and the thought of them is, in general,
sufficient to keep visiters on the bridge.

Yet use doth breed a habit in a man, I do
not think I possess any philosophic contempt
of raging billows: and I have, especially,
very poor and unhappy brains for looking
down precipices. Yet there was something
in the glory of Niagara that chased away my
fears—it may be, swallowed them up in the
all-engrossing passion of delight; something
in the sublime position of those naked rocks,
too, which, when once reached, substituted
for trembling apprehension a nobler feeling
—a feeling as of enthronement, and rule, and
power over the majestic torrent.

One day, while sitting upon one of these
grim thrones, speculating, after the true
motley-manner, upon the ever-falling flood,
in which fancy saw represented the river of
human life, with the cataract of death, over
which it was eternally falling, and wondering
what difference it made to the drop pitching
down the steep, whether rocks had vexed, or
smoother channels lulled it into security, on
the way; my attention was attracted to a

stranger, whom I had previously noticed on
the bridge, and who, besides myself, was the
only living creature at that moment to be
seen on, or near, the fall. He stood grasping
the rail of the bridge, pale, agitated, and
eyeing myself, as I soon found, with a look
that I interpreted into a call for assistance—
a call which terror, sickness, or some unknown
cause, I supposed, prevented his making
by word of mouth.

I left my rock, which was only rendered
temporarily accessible, in consequence of a
huge log having lodged against it, as well as
against another nearer the bridge, forming a
stepping-tree that the first swell of the flood
must wash away, and hurried to the stranger's
assistance, without, however, having
any very clear idea what ailed him. As I
stepped upon the bridge, he seized me by the
hand, and with the fervent ejaculation,
“Heaven be praised!” hurried me up to his
side, pretty much with the air of one who, in
mortal affright himself, has just snatched
another out of imminent danger. “Heaven
be praised!” he cried; “I was frightened for
you; or, rather, I—I—” Here he became
confused, as if awaking from a dream—“I
was frightened for myself!”

All this was very mysterious and incomprehensible
to me; which my countenance
showing, the gentleman—for indeed he was
a man both of good appearance and manners
—exclaimed, “I beg your pardon: I believe
I have been acting like a fool, and talking
like one. But the appearance of a human
being sitting on that rock, unmanned me: I
thought it was myself, and—and—. In short,
sir, I scarce know what I am saying. You
seem amazed at my trepidation. Yet I can
tell you of an adventure on that rock, which
will excuse my weakness. Yes—that is, if
you will but walk with me to some secure
place—to the island; for, I freely admit, my
thoughts are here too much disordered.”

My curiosity being raised, and somewhat
of an interest excited in the stranger, whose
years, for he was in the prime of life, his tall
and robust frame, and manly countenance,
seemed inconsistent with the weakness of
fear,—I readily attended him to the island.
His agitation decreased, as we approached it;
and, by and by, when we had plunged amid
its sweet bowers, walking towards its upper
borders, whither he begged me to accompany
him, it vanished so entirely, that he was able
like myself, to note and admire the numberless

beauties, which make almost an elysium
of this fairy island.

Was there ever, indeed, a spot so lovely
as Goat Island? Couched on the breast of
the fall, surrounded by the mighty floods, that
go rushing by with the velocity, and ten times
the power and fury, of the wind—a very hurricane
of waters; lashed, beaten, worried,
perpetually devoured by them; it lies amid
the roar and convulsion, its little islets around
it, green, lovely, and peaceful, an Eden on
the face of chaos. Hid in its groves of beech
and maple, of larch and hemlock, oak, linden
and tuliptree; in its peeping glades, embowered
with vines and ivies, and towering sumachs
that cluster rich and red as Persian roses all
around; the raspberry hanging from the bush,
the strawberry and the bluebell glimmering
together on the ground; the bee and the butterfly,
the grasshopper and the humming-bird
pursuing their pretty tasks all around; the
sparrow and the mocking bird singing aloft;
the dove cooing, the woodpecker tapping, in
the shade; you might here dream away an
anchoritish existence, scarce conscious of
the proximity of the cataract, whose voice
comes to your ear, a softened murmur, that
seems only the hum of other birds and insects

a little further off. A step brings you to its
borders, and here you look over a wall of torrent
to the world, from which you are yet
sundered far enough to satisfy even the complaining
Timon. Here you may muse and
moralize over “man, that quintessence of
dust,” and yet indulge the yearning to be near
him of which no misanthrope can wholly
divest himself; here, in your island, your
you may rail at the monster, without being
exasperated by, or entirely banished from, his
presence.

Following my new friend through the lovely
walks of the island, and still keeping on
its western borders, we reached a charming
nook, where a cluster of several rocky and
wooded islets was separated from Goat Island
only by a narrow channel, through which,
however, the current flowed with great tumult
and violence. The trunk of a spruce
tree, half submerged by the flood, in which it
shook with perpetual tremor, offered a passage
to the nearer islet to such as were inclined
to avail themselves of it. But that

was not I; I liked not the appearance of the
aguish log, over which, every now and then,
the torrent made a complete breach, leaping
into the air like a gallant and impatient
hunter taking a five-barred gate, and then
plunging down again to pursue its impetuous
course. Nor was my companion a whit
more disposed to the adventure than myself.
On the contrary, he gazed upon the
foamy bridge with some share of the agitation
he had previously displayed. From
this, however, he soon recovered, and even
laughed at his weakness; after which, sitting
down with me at the roots of an ancient
tree, the roaring channel at our feet, he related
the incident of adventure the mere
allusion to which had aroused my curiosity.
He was, he gave me to understand a citizen of
the West—of Illinois; but born in the Empire
State, which he was now revisiting with no
other object than to renew a brief acquaintance
with the scenes of his youth. But it
is proper he should speak his story in his
own words.

2. CHAPTER II.

“My earliest breath was drawn in the great
metropolis; from which, I thank heaven, I
have escaped to become a freeman of the
prairies. The slavery of a city life, not to
speak of the more intolerable bondage of
trade, I early learned to detest; and I as early
made an effort to throw off my chains, and
turn savage. You know what the philosopher—I
believe it is Humboldt—says: `It is
with the beginning of civilization as with its
decline: man appears to repent of the restraint
which he has imposed on himself by
entering into society; and he seeks the solitude,
and loves it, because it restores him to
his former freedom.” I was beginning to be

civilized—that is, I was beginning to make a
fortune, which is one and the same thing—
when the impulse seized me, and I turned
my face to the West. My first place of
sojourn was the banks of this very river, the
glorious Niagara, on which, as you perceive,
I can scarce look without starting up to run
away;—not that I am very deeply galled by
the looks of civilization it now wears—its
towns and cities, its shops and taverns, its
mills and factories with which they are, here
at the falls, striving to mar Heaven's handy-work;
but because every look recalls to memory
a terrible adventure that once befel me
upon it, and which has converted my once
ardent love of the majestic tide into fear and
abhorrence.

“I was already wearying of the increase of
population around me, but not yet able to
tear myself from scenes so lovely and beloved,
when the projectors of a very pardonable
innovation succeeded in throwing a
bridge over to Goat Island, and thus opened
to the eye of man haunts that were only before
accessible through means the most difficult
and dangerous. These little islets before
us, and, I believe, several others on the east
side, were brought under subjection in the

same manner; and the project of bridging the
Terrapin Rocks was also talked of; though
that was left to be completed at a later
period. The Terrapin Rocks still lay amid
the curling billows, on the verge of the fall,
as they had lain for a thousand years, untouched
and unapproached by the foot of
man. Often have I—among the first to ramble
up and down the island, admiring its virgin
solitudes, its beauties yet uninvaded and
undefiled—sat upon yonder bluff, viewing
those blackened rocks, and longing for the
commencement and completion of the projected
bridge, that I might be upon them.
That very rock upon which you sat, I had
fixed upon, in prospect, as the seat from
which I should survey the flood, making a
pleasure of fear, and enjoying the luxury of
danger. It is true, that rock appeared entirely
isolated from the others; but that, with
its exposed situation on the very edge of the
precipice, formed its charm. I saw, or fancied,
that I might reach it by the same means
accident provided for you—by lodging a log
against it. I was thus, in intention, guilty
of the act, which I am now wise enough to
pronounce midsummer madness in another.”

I made the narrator a bow; he smiled,
and continued his story.

“Meanwhile, that I might not neglect
pleasures within my reach, while longing for
those as yet unattainable, I did not fail to
pursue the pastime of fishing, of which I was
then extremely enamoured. Moored in my
little skiff along the lonely shores of Grand
Island, listing the ripple of the current and
the thunder of the distant falls, I enjoyed a
sense of liberty, hooked my nibbling whitefish,
compared them to human beings, my
fellows, all as eager to nibble at the baits of
fortune, and thus played the moralist and
tyrant together.

“One sunny evening, while thus engaged,
and with but little luck, the quiet of the hour
and the scene, added to the charms of my
philosophy, prevailed over me, and I fell fast
asleep in my boat; and so remained for half
an hour, dreaming, good, easy man, I was
hauling up whitefish with men's faces, and
other piscatory monsters, all in great numbers,
and with the ease and rapidity a fisherman
loves.

“On a sudden I awoke. The screams of
my victims—for methought they opened their

mouths and cried for mercy—had disturbed
my conscience and started me out of my
slumber.

“It was sunset: the shadows of the Canadian
hills were stealing over the river, and the
dusky twilight was gathering fast. For a few
moments, my thoughts were in the confusion
of slumber but half dispelled. The screams
of my visionary captives still sounded in my
ears; or, at least, I thought they did; until
gradually made aware that the cries I now
heard were those of human beings, whom I
saw running wildly along the Canada shore,
tossing their arms, and betraying other signs
of the greatest agitation. I felt a drowsy
surprise at the spectacle, and, for a moment,
half wondered what had become of the island
cove, with its hanging trees and jutting
rocks, in which I had moored my boat; and
what was the meaning of those dimmer and
more distant shores, that seemed gliding past
me like the phantasmas of a dream. Nay,
I even wondered what caused the commotion
of the people on shore—at what they
were beckoning and screaming.

“A louder yell from them broke the last remaining
bonds of sleep; and I started up in
my skiff, restored for the first time to full

consciousness. My boat had broke her moorings,
and, God of Heaven! I was in the rapids!

“Yes, in that fatal slumber—fatal, yet tranquil
as the sleep of happiness—I had been
floating down the tide, hearing, in my dreams,
the shrieks of warning sent to me from the
shore, yet hearing them all in vain, until it
was too late to profit by them. I was in the
rapids, plunging down the watery declivity
towards the horrible gulf, from which nothing
but the wings of an eagle could save me. Oh,
the agony of that discovery—the sting of
that moment of horror!

“But was there no escape? I was but a
hundred yards from the shore, and my oars
were swinging loose on their pivots. I seized
them with the energy of despair; but a fierce
blast burst from the shore, and whirled me still
further into the current. Away, away—down,
down—in spite of my exertions, which were
as the struggles of an insect in a tornado;
faster and faster, wilder and wilder—nothing
helped, nothing availed, save to add double
bitterness to my cup of misery. The rapids
grew fiercer and rougher, and, on a sudden,
the oars were shivered to pieces in my hands.
I started up with the mad thought of flinging
myself into the tide and swimming for my
life; but I was now midway in the channel,

and the fury of the galloping billows all
around me palsied heart and limb: there was
no hope, there was no escape—the falls had
secured their victim.

“I sat down, and covered my eyes with my
hands; but it was only for an instant. I
could not thus die tamely, like a fettered brute.

“I rose again, frantic—fiercely mad—determined
to leap into the water, and die at least
struggling. My boat was already among the
breakers on the reef running from the head
of the island. Look! you may see them
through the spruces: how they leap up, striding
and curling over the hidden rocks, pillars
and arches of foam, beautiful yet dreadful to
behold!

“Among these horrible billows my boat
darted like an arrow, struck a rock, and was
shivered to atoms. As for me, tossed twenty
feet into the air by the shock, I had just
enough of consciousness to exult in the thought
that death was snatching me from suffering.
In one moment more, I was swimming in the
torrent, grasping at rocks over which I was
borne with rending violence, and from which
I was torn before my fingers could clutch
them. A few months before, in constructing
the bridge to the island, a man had fallen into

the flood, and saved himself by clinging to a
rock. I had heard of the expedient by which
he was enabled to catch hold of the rock,
and now sought to imitate it. Instead of
striking out towards the island as I had been
endeavouring to do, though, miserable me!
with no hope of reaching it, I turned my face
up the flood, and strained every nerve to
moderate the velocity of my flight through
the current. The expedient succeeded. My
body came in contact with a rock, which I
was able to grasp in my hands, and retain
hold of for a moment.

“It was only for a moment: my body formed
an obstruction over which the waters leaped
and foamed as over a new rock; and away
they at last whirled me, drowning and helpless,
still struggling, but struggling, as I well
knew, wholly in vain.

“Away, again, down the ridgy steep I went
swimming and rolling, now whelmed, now
upon the surface, stealing a ghastly look of
the sky that was to be dark to me for ever,
bruised, wounded, strangling, and stunned by
the thunder of the cataract over which I was
hastening to fall.

“That thunder grew every instant louder
and more appalling; I could already see the

hideous rim of the cataract—the sudden
sinking of the flood, known by its border of
foam, mingled with the yellow light transmitted
through the edge of the down-curling
water. This I saw with what I deemed my last
look; but that look disclosed to me a black
cluster of rocks among, or very near to which
I was evidently hurrying. A prayer came to
my lips; I screamed it to Heaven; and with
efforts of strength that were rather convulsions
than natural struggles, struck out towards
them, hoping the torrent might dash
me among them. The torrent did dash me
among them; but it was not until the very
last of them had been reached that I found
myself able to grasp it, to maintain my hold,
and to crawl from the accursed flood. I was
saved! I lay secure upon the rock—that
very rock which I had so often longed to
visit—a prisoner in the midst, and upon the
verge, of the cataract.

3. CHAPTER III.

“I LAY upon the rock exhausted and fainting,
and, for a time, almost inscnsible. But,
by and by, I recovered strength and looked
around me. How horrible was the prospect!
Night was closing around me; and there I
crouched upon my rock—so small as scarce
to permit me to lie at length—on one side of
it the abyss, on all the others the roaring
waters. My hair bristled, as I peeped down
the chasm; my heart withered, when I looked
upon the expanse of torrent hemming me
in, the tumbling billows that menaced me as
they approached, and mocked me as they
rushed by and leaped down the precipice.

“It was almost night, but objects were still
faintly discernible on the shore. I saw human

figures moving on Table Rock. Were
they the men who had seen me in the rapids,
hailed me, waked me from my fatal sleep,
and followed after me, running along the
banks, to—no, not to help me! Man could
not do that—but to witness my fate? I rose
upon my feet, and shouted at the wildest
stretch of my voice. It was breath wasted
—the twittering of a sparrow in a tempest,
the cry of a drowning mariner in the midst
of an ocean: the sound was scarcely audible
to myself. They heard me not; they saw
me not: the night was darkening upon them,
and they stole away from the falls. What
difference made it to me, whom, had they
seen me, they could have only pitied? Yet
I wept, when I saw them no more. There
was something of support, something of comfort,
even in the sight of a human being,
though afar off, and incapable of rendering
me any assistance.

“By and by, it was wholly night; but a full
moon was stealing up the sky, throwing, first,
a yellow, ghastly lustre, and then, as she
mounted higher, a silver glory, over the
scene. A party of visiters came down upon
the Table Rock to view the falls by moonlight:
I could see the fluttering of white scarfs

and dresses—there were women among them
—women, the soft-hearted, the humane, the
pitying. I rose again; I waved my arms; I
shouted. They look!—It is upon the waters,
among which I am—nothing, a straw, a mote,
a speck, invisible and unregarded. They
looked, and they departed; and I was again
in solitude—as lonely, as friendless, as hopeless,
as if the sole dweller of the sphere.

“Presently, as the night lapsed on, clouds
gathered over the sky, and the moon was
occasionally hidden, now and then to dart
down a snowy beam through the driving
rack, giving a wild and spectral character to
the scene, which was before sufficiently awful.
There were even indications of a storm:
pale sheets of lightning ever and anon whitened
along the sky, and perhaps the thunder
rolled; but that I heard not—the thunders of
the cataract swallowed up the detonations of
heaven. A breeze—there was ever a breeze
there, the gusts from the vexed gulf below;
but this was a wind that prevailed over the
gusts of the fall—came down from the lake,
and grew momently in strength. I almost
expected the hour, when, growing into fury,
it should whirl me from my miserable rock,
and plunge me down the falls. My next

thought was full as terrible: this breeze blowing
from the lake—must it not increase the
volume of waters flowing down the river?
Ay, and by and by, of all these rocks, now
breasting and repelling the flood, there will
not be one that is not covered a foot deep,
a mighty billow foaming over it! What
then becomes of me, denied secure possession
even of my wretched rock?

“As I thought these things, deeming my
misery greater than I could bear, greater
than that wherewith heaven had afflicted any
other mortal, a shriek echoed in my ear; and
looking round, I beheld a boat in the rapids
not fifty yards off, and within but as many
feet of the fall, and in it a man, who seemed
like myself to have been asleep, and was but
now awaked to a consciousness of his situation.
He shrieked, started up, uttered one
more cry, and then vanished over the fall.

“This dreary spectacle appeased my clamours;
it left me stupified, yet clinging with
convulsive grasp to the rock on which, I felt,
I had yet a brief term of existence.

“The moon continued to rise, the clouds to
darken, the lightnings to grow brighter; and,
after a time, the storm I had apprehended,
burst over me; the artillery of heaven was,

at last, heard pealing and crashing, and adding
its elemental music to the boom of the
waters. But before the storm burst, how
many new incidents were added to that midnight
adventure! Other things of life—things
to which life was as dear as to me, yet all
more wretched than I—passed over the falls
within my sight. An eagle, blown by the
tempest from his perch—or, perhaps, maimed
by a gunner, and thus precipitated into the
river—was whirled over, almost within reach
of my hand, fluttering in vain the sinewy
wings that had once borne him among the
stars. Then came an ox, and a bear;—a
horse, whose scream was to the heart as
sickening as death; and a dog, who, as he
passed, yelped—yes, even from the brink of
the fall, yelped to me for succour. To me!—
to me who was myself so helpless and lost!
I laughed a bitter laugh of derision and
despair.

“By and by, a log was whirled down the
rapid, and among the rocks. It lodged
against the rock nearest my own—that which
I would have given worlds but to reach—
and the free end, swinging in the current,
struck against my little island, and ground
its way by. Was not this a bridge offered

me by Heaven, which had, at last, heard my
supplications? Frantic with excitement, with
mingled hope and fear, I snatched at the log,
to drag it athwart my rock, hoping the very
violence of the current would keep it securely
lodged betwixt the two. I might as well
have attempted to arrest a thunderbolt in its
flight. I seized it, indeed, but its momentum
was irresistible; and with a tremendous jerk,
it both freed itself from my grasp and dashed
me from my rock over the fall. Yes, over
the fall; but! God be praised, my hands were
able to clutch upon the rock, from which I
hung suspended betwixt the heaven above
and the hell beneath, swinging in the gusts
and in the waters, which, on either side,
washed my feet, falling upon them as with
the weight of mountains.

“What was all I had suffered before, compared
with the agonies of that moment, thus
hanging, and every moment about to fall?
I endeavoured to plant my feet on the broken
face of the rock, and, in this way, clamber
again to its top: there were crannies and
ridges enough, but rotted by the water and
frosts, and they broke under my feet. My
efforts only served the purpose of digging
away the foundations of the rock, and thus

expediting the moment of my fall. I threw
all my strength into my arms, and, with a
prodigious effort, succeeded—yes, succeeded
in again placing myself upon the rock, where
I lay down upon my face and laughed with
joy.

“Then came the tempest, the rushing wind,
the roaring thunder, the blinding lightning.
What horrible loveliness now sat upon the
scene! Was not this more than sublime?
more than terrific? Now the descending
waters were veiled in impenetrable darkness,
in a blackness as of death and chaos; and
anon the red bolt, the levin-rocket bursting
from the cloud, glared into the darkest nooks
of the abyss, revealing and adorning them
with a ghastly splendour. Add to this the
thunder rattling in rivalry with the roaring
flood; and you have Niagara, seen at midnight,
by the torches of Heaven—fit lights
for a spectacle so grand and stupendous.

“It was a spectacle too magnificent to be
lost by the visiters of Niagara, who came
trooping down to the Table Rock; where, at
every blaze of the lightning, I could see them
clustered, expressing by their gestures their
admiration and delight. I saw them so distinctly
at times, that I thought it not impossible

they also might see me; and accordingly
I rose again to my feet, forgetting, or defying,
the winds, and doing every thing in my
power to attract their attention.

“I succeeded; some one at last beheld me:
I knew it by the agitation immediately visible
among the crowd, all eyes being now
turned in one direction—to the rock on which
I stood—I, the lost and the wretched! The
tears rushed to my eyes: I did not expect
them to help me—I knew they could not; but
they pitied me; I should have, at least, some
sympathizing fellow creature to see me die.

“The agitation increased; lights were
brought, and flashed to and fro; I saw torches
upon the path leading down to the ferry—
torches even upon the water. What! they
were crossing the river? The people of my
own side would then know of my fate; and
they—yes, they might assist me! They could
reach Goat Island—they could come out
upon the rocks—they could throw bridges
over those rocks that were otherwise inaccessible!
My heart leaped in my bosom: I
should yet be saved!

“I looked to Goat Island; yet looked long in
vain. Was I deceived? Alas! that agitation,
those lights descending the rocks and

crossing the river; were there not a hundred
causes to explain them, without reference to
me? My hopes sunk, and I with them to
my rock—Heaven and earth! the water was
already rising upon it! Yes, the river was
swelling, swelling fast, and my treacherous
rock was vanishing under my feet!”

4. CHAPTER IV.

“At that moment, a light gleamed from Goat
Island, and I heard—Was it fancy?—a halloo.
Another light shone, followed by another, and
another; and the flash of lightning disclosed
a dozen men upon the bank. The same bright
glare exhibited me, also, to them, and they set
up a great shout that was no longer to be
mistaken for a noise made by the winds or
waters: it came distinctly to my ears; and I
saw my friends run down the bank towards
the rocks, waving their torches and their
hands, as if to bid me be of good cheer.

“My transports were inexpressible, as I beheld
them, some picking their way from rock
to rock, advancing as near to me as they
could, while others seemed to remain on the

island only to prepare the means for securing
a still nearer approach. They were gathering
logs to make bridges—knotting ropes
together to float, or throw, to me—nay, I
knew not what they were doing; but I knew
they were doing every thing they could, toiling,
every man, with generous zeal; and all
of them, when the lightning discovered me
standing with outstretched hands, bursting
into shouts meant to encourage and animate
my spirits.

“But the good work proceeded slowly; they
advanced but a little way on the rocks, when
the boiling currents brought them to a pause.
A log was brought, and one step further secured;
and then another pause. I saw, there
was doubt, and wavering, and confusion among
them, and cried aloud to them not to desert
me. Another log was brought and thrown
over the chasm that arrested them: it bent,
shook, and was half whelmed in the torrent,
and they—yes, it was plain to me—they feared
to tread it! One man, at last, a noble
creature, stirred by the piercing cries which
I now uttered, dreading lest they should give
over their exertions in despair, attempted the
passage of the log—reached its middle, staggered—and
then fell into the flood. A dismal

shriek burst from his companions—But he
was not lost! A rope had been previously
fastened around his body; and with this they
snatched him from the death he had so intrepidly
dared for me.

“This perilous adventure seemed to strike
them all with dread. The confusion and
wavering among them became still more manifest:
some crept back to the island; others
pointed to the river rolling down increased
and still growing floods; and others again
looked up to the clouds, which were blacker
and fiercer than ever. They uttered no more
shouts, they offered no longer encouraging
gestures. It was plain, they were abandoning
me to my fate, or resolved to wait for
further assistance; when every moment of delay
was to me full of danger. The floods
were already high upon my rock, and still
rising. Another hour, a half hour—perhaps
but a few moments—and assistance must
come to me too late. They knew this; yet
they were leaving me—yes, it was plain they
were leaving me!

“I grew frantic at the thought; and, ungrateful
for what they had already done, invoked
curses upon them for failing in what they
could not do.

“Did my execrations reach their ears? As
they turned to depart, a single figure detached
itself from the group, ran across the log
which had so nearly caused the death of the
former adventurer, and then, with such tremendous
leaps as I never thought mortal man
could make, and with a courage that seemed
to laugh all perils to scorn, sprang from rock
to rock, and at last stood at my side!—Will
you not fancy despair had driven me mad,
and that what I now saw and heard was the
dream of a mind overcome by sudden insanity?
I saw, then—no man—but an infernal
fiend standing at my side, who said to me,
—`Be thou my servant, and I will set thee
upon dry land.' And as he spoke, I felt my
rock trembling and sinking under my feet.
What will not a man not do for life? `I
will be thy servant,' I cried. With that, he
laughed the laugh of a devil in my face, and
struck the rock with his foot; and down I
sank to perdition. He struck the rock with
his foot; or was it a thunder-bolt that smote
it, crushing it away like an arch of sand? It
melted from beneath me, and down I sank—
down, down into the abyss; and the waters
fell upon me like a mountain, crushing, drowning,
suffocating; and I—and I—” The narrator

paused a moment, wiped the sweat-drops
from his forehead, and then laying his
hand upon a mossy bank beside him, continued,
—“I found myself lying on this identical bank,
a fragment of my boat beside me, the rest of it
emerging from the water below that log,”
(pointing to the little bridge to the islet)
“against which it had struck and been broken,
and hurrying off to the cataract at the rate
of sixty miles an hour!”

I looked at the stranger in astonishment,
perhaps also with indignation; for his story
had taken deep hold on my feelings: but I
saw in him nothing to justify a suspicion that
he was amusing himself at my expense. On
the contrary, his appearance indicated deep
earnestness and deep emotion; and he was
manifestly struggling to shake off the effects
of a harrowing recollection. But the affair
was a mystery I desired to penetrate; and I
exclaimed, somewhat hastily, and, indeed,
with no little simplicity—

“And so, sir, I am to understand, you
were not upon that rock at all?”

“Certainly,” he replied; “I never was on
that rock in my life, and, please Heaven, I
never shall be. But, sir”—and here he summoned
a faint smile, and again wiped his

brows—“you do not, I believe, entirely conceive
me. I tell you what was partly an adventure,
and partly a dream. It is true, that
I fell asleep in my boat—that my boat broke
her moorings and drifted into the rapids; and
it is also true, that, while thus drifting towards
destruction, I dreamed all I have told
you—the cries from the shore—the toss from
the boat, and the swim to the rock—the appearance
of the people upon Table Rock and
Goat Island, the demon and all—that I dreamed
this, while thus floating. But in reality,
while I was thus pleasantly engaged, my
boat drifted into the channel here before us,
and struck that bridge-log with a violence
which both dispersed my dream and saved
my life, by hurling me ashore.

“This is my whole story. You are surprised,
perhaps, that I made so much ado of
my dream, and so little of the real adventure.
But in truth, sir, I know nothing of the real
adventure, except that I fell asleep in my
boat and was thrown ashore on Goat Island
—Remember, I was asleep all the time. The
dream is, to me, the real adventure, after all;
for it had, and still has, upon my mind, all the
force of reality. You observe, that I look
upon this foaming channel before us—upon

that log, which if I had gone over or under,
I must have perished, with little or no emotion;
while, on the contrary, the sight of the
rock, the scene of imaginary perils and sufferings,
affects me in the strongest manner.
Truly, the dream, the dream's the thing, that,
with me, constitutes the soul of the adventure;
and I tell you it, not so much to surprise
you with its singularity, as to add one
illustration to the many you have yourself,
perhaps, gathered, of the power of the imagination
in striking into the heart impressions
deeper and more abiding than have been imprinted
by the touch of reality. One may
understand the incurable hallucinations of
madness, who will remember the influence of
a dream.”

I thanked the gentleman for his story and
explanation; and, after some hesitation, begged
to know what construction he put upon
his compact with the juggling fiend.

“Why, hang him, as he did not comply
with his engagement to place me on dry land,
(as was natural enough for a devil,) I consider
the contract as broken, and my bond of
servitude cancelled,” the stranger replied,
laughing; but added, a little more seriously—
“I lay the thing to heart, notwithstanding.

A man may be shown, even in a dream, the
true infirmity of his character—the flimsiness
of his virtue, the weakness of his courage.
In the daylight, we are all actors—actors
even to ourselves: it is only in sleep we can
remove the mask, and look upon ourselves
as heaven made us.

“But, morbleu! the tavern-bell rings. Let us
leave cold water and philosophy, and go to
dinner.”