"Do you think to frighten me?" shouted Peters, who, perceiving the
speaker to be his despised opponent, became suspicious, as the latter
had feared, that the warning was but a _ruse_ to prevent him from
going on that night,--"do you think to frighten me back, liar, when a
heavy team has just passed safely over before my eyes?"

And, in defiance of the timely caution he had received, and the
warning sounds, of which his senses might have apprised him, had he
paused a moment to listen, he furiously applied the whip, and plunged
madly through the water towards the middle ice But as rapidly as he
drove, the team had not passed over more than one third of the
distance across, before he and all with him became fully aware of the
fearful peril they had so recklessly incurred; for, at this critical
moment, with awful brunt, the mountain wave of icy ruins came rolling
round the screening point into full view, and not fifty yards above
them. A cry of alarm at once burst from every occupant of the menaced
vehicle and Peters, no less frightened than the rest, suddenly checked
the horses, with the half-formed design of turning and attempting to
regain the shore he had just left. But on glancing round, he beheld,
to his dismay, the ice burst upward from its winter moorings along the
shore, leaving between them and the bank a dark chasm of whirling
waters, over which it were madness to think of repassing. At that
instant, with a deep and startling report, the broad sheet of ice
confining the agitated river burst asunder parted, and was afloat in a
hundred pieces around them. Another piercing cry of terror and
distress issued from the devoted sleigh and Miss Haviland, with an
involuntary impulse at the fearful shock, leaped out on to the large
cake of ice on which the sleigh and horses were resting. She seemed
instantly to perceive her error; but before she could regain the
sleigh, or even be caught by the extended hands of her friends, the