The Breaking of the Storm by Friedrich Spielhagen

"That won't do," cried the village Mayor; "haul it in again!"

"Ho! heave ho! " cried the thirty men who had hold of the rope. "Ho! heave ho!"

They had hurriedly constructed a kind of raft from a few beams, boards, and doors torn from the nearest houses, and let it go into the stream experimentally. Instantly it had been whirled round and upset, and the thirty men had enough to do to haul it on shore again.

For what had been the side of the hill was now the shore of a rushing, foaming stream. And on the hillside half the village was already collected, and others were ever breathlessly joining the crowd. There was no danger for the village; the nearest houses stood ten or fifteen feet above the water, and it seemed impossible that it should rise so much, more especially as in the last few minutes it had already gone down about a foot. The gale had shifted more to the north, the incoming flood would be driven towards the headland; and although the storm still raged with unabated fury, it had grown a little lighter. The first comers had no need now to point out the place to the new arrivals; everyone could see the whitewashed balcony on the other side, and the dark women's figures -- once there were two, then again only one, who at first, said the first comers, had waved her handkerchief constantly, but now sat crouched in a corner, as if she had given up all hope, and was resignedly awaiting her fate.

And yet it seemed as if the work of deliverance must succeed. The distance was so small; a strong man could throw a stone across. They had even -- foolishly -- tried it, the best thrower amongst them had flung a stone, fastened to the end of a thin cord; but the stone had not flown ten feet, and with the cord had been blown away like gossamer. And now a huge wave from the other side rolled through the park, broke over the balcony, and, joining the stream, ran up to the top of the bank. The women shrieked aloud, the men looked at each other with grave, anxious faces.

"It won't do, boys! " said the Mayor; "long before we can get the raft across, the thing over there will have given way. Another such wave, and it must be knocked to pieces; I know it well, the pillars are not six inches across, and worm-eaten besides."

"And if we got to the other side and ran against it we should go to pieces and be upset ourselves," said Jochen Becker, the blacksmith.

"And there would be ten of us in the water instead of two," said Carl Peters, the carpenter.

"There is no good talking like that," said the Mayor; "we can't let them be drowned there before our very eyes. We'll take the raft thirty yards higher up, and the men must go off at once; I'll go with it myself. Haul away, my men. Ho! heave ho!"

A hundred hands were ready to drag the raft up stream. But thirty yards were not enough, it would require twice as much. Half-a-dozen courageous men had been found, too, to make the attempt; the Mayor might stay behind; who else was to command those who held the ropes? And that was the principal matter!

With long poles they steadied themselves on the raft. "Let go! " The raft shot out like an arrow into the centre of the stream.

"Hurrah! " cried those on shore, thinking the object already attained, fearing only that the raft would be carried into the park and driven against the trees.

But suddenly they came to a standstill; not a foot farther would it go, but danced about in midstream till the six men on board were forced to throw themselves down and cling fast, then darted down like an arrow against the near shore, to the spot where they had stood before. It took all the strength of the fifty men there assembled to hold it in, and it was only by the greatest exertion and with much apparent danger that the six men got safely off the raft and up the steep bank.

"This won't do, boys! " said the Mayor. "I wish the Lieutenant would come back; they are his relations. He drives us down here, and then doesn't come himself."

The slight increase of light they had had, when the driving mist was partly blown aside, had disappeared again. Hitherto the leaden sky and dense storm-driven mist had made the evening seem like night; but now the real night was drawing in. Only a very sharp eye could still distinguish the black figure on the balcony, and even the balcony itself was not visible to all. At the same time the gale decidedly increased in violence, and had again veered from northeast to southeast, while the water rose considerably in consequence of the backward flow from Wissow Head. Now might have been a good opportunity, as the velocity of the stream was thus diminished; but no one had the heart to renew the hopeless effort. If there were no means of getting a rope over to the other side and fastening it there, so that some men might pass over the frail bridge to guide the raft over from that side, there was no hope.

So thought the Mayor, and the rest agreed with him. But they had to shout it into each other's ears; no word spoken in an ordinary tone could have been heard through the fearful uproar.

Suddenly Ottomar stood amongst them. He had taken in the whole position at a glance. "A rope here! " he cried, "and lights! The willows there!"

They understood him at once; the four old hollow willow-trunks close to the edge! Let them be set on fire! It was true, if they could succeed in doing it, there would be danger to the village; but no one thought of that. They rushed to the nearest houses and dragged out armfuls of fir-wood and pitch, and thrust it all into the hollow trunks, which fortunately opened to westward. Two or three vain efforts -- and then it flamed up -- blazing, crackling -- sometimes flaming high, sometimes sinking down again -- throwing shifting lights upon the hundreds of pale faces which were all turned with anxious gaze upon the man who, with the rope round his body, was fighting with the stream.

Would he hold out?