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."