As emotion spreads from one to another in a crowd of living beings, so does trouble grow by some elemental sympathy of nature among inanimate things. The terror and the tumult of the scene we are describing seemed to communicate itself to the whole landscape. The very river, flowing from the opposite direction, and winding away seaward by the base of the mountains, seemed to boil up ominously, surging tumultuously along. A mile away there was a wooden bridge, over which many of the panic-stricken peasants had now crossed, gaining the open vale beyond. Suddenly, the supports of this bridge yielded to the fury of the waters; the bridge, covered with sheep and cattle, with men and women about to follow, tottered, yielded, and was swept away with its load. All this time Feagus and Conseltine had stood fascinated, forgetful of themselves in the extraordinary scene they were contemplating; but now, as the excitement culminated, they realized their own danger. ‘We must get out of this,’ said Feagus. ‘If we don’t cross the ford, we’ll be buried alive!’ He flew rather than ran towards the river, and reached the place of crossing, only to stand in abject terror above a boiling torrent. ‘Saints save us!’ he groaned. ‘No man can cross here.’ He turned trembling, and saw Conseltine standing by his side, pale but comparatively calm. ‘What’s to be done?’ gasped Feagus. Conseltine smiled grimly. ‘Plunge in, man, wade to the other side, or swim to it! It’s not twenty yards from bank to bank.’ ‘I should drown!’ cried the lawyer. ‘Better that than live to betray the man that has fed and kept you so many years. You talked of turning Queen’s evidence--go and do it!’ Feagus recoiled. ‘I didn’t mane it, Conseltine--’Twas only my little joke. For God’s sake, tell me what’s to be done!’ ‘I neither know nor care,’ returned the other. ‘Perhaps it’s God’s vengeance upon us for what we’ve done. Are you afraid to die?’ Without replying, Feagus looked round in despair. The whole mountain-side seemed now descending on that portion of the valley where he stood, while the river wound round and round, between Blake’s Hall and the open moor by which they had gained the lonely vale. There was only one way of escape--to gain the opposite bank of the river. ‘Tell me this--if we escape out of this alive, do you mean to stand by me or to turn against me?’ ‘To stand by ye, to stand by ye!’ cried Feagus. ‘Then strip off your coat, and follow me!’ said Conseltine. ‘I’m going across. If the water takes me off my feet, I shall swim to the point below yonder--the current swirls that way, and it’s shallow close to the bank. You’d better come--it’s your only chance.’ Suiting the action to the word, Conseltine took off his outer garments, and stood in trousers and shirtsleeves; then, stooping down, he unlaced his mud-clogged boots, and threw them off. Trembling with fear, Feagus followed his example.