"Savages!" he cried, "it was I who gave you the idea of that raft. I
have saved you, and you deny me a place."
A confused murmur answered him. The men at the edge of the raft, armed
with long sticks, pressed with violence against the shore to send off
the frail construction with sufficient impetus to force its way
through corpses and ice-floes to the other shore.
"Thunder of heaven! I'll sweep you into the water if you don't take
the major and his two companions," cried the stalwart grenadier, who
swung his sabre, stopped the departure, and forced the men to stand
closer in spite of furious outcries.
"I shall fall,"--"I am falling,"--"Push off! push off!--Forward!"
resounded on all sides.
The major looked with haggard eyes at Stephanie, who lifted hers to
heaven with a feeling of sublime resignation.
"To die with thee!" she said.
There was something even comical in the position of the men in
possession of the raft. Though they were uttering awful groans and
imprecations, they dared not resist the grenadier, for in truth they
were so closely packed together, that a push to one man might send
half of them overboard. This danger was so pressing that a cavalry
captain endeavored to get rid of the grenadier; but the latter, seeing
the hostile movement of the officer, seized him round the waist and
flung him into the water, crying out,--
"Ha! ha! my duck, do you want to drink? Well, then, drink!-- Here are
two places," he cried.
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