What retort Isabel might have made cannot now be known, for she was arrested at this moment by a rumor amongst the passengers that they were coming to the Long Sault Rapids.  Looking forward she saw the tossing and flashing of surges that, to the eye, are certainly as threatening as the rapids above Niagara.  The steamer had already passed the Deplau and the Galopes, and they had thus had a foretaste of whatever pleasure or terror there is in the descent of these nine miles of stormy sea.  It is purely a matter of taste, about shooting the rapids of the St. Lawrence.  The passengers like it better than the captain and the pilot, to guesses by their looks, and the women and children like it better than the men.  It is no doubt very thrilling and picturesque and wildly beautiful:  the children crow and laugh, the women shout forth their delight, as the boat enters the seething current; great foaming waves strike her bows, and brawl away to the stern, while she dips, and rolls, and shoots onward, light as a bird blown by the wind; the wild shores and islands whirl out of sight; you feel in every fibre the career of the vessel.  But the captain sits in front of the pilothouse smoking with a grave face, the pilots tug hard at the wheel; the hoarse roar of the waters fills the air; beneath the smoother sweeps of the current you can see the brown rocks; as you sink from ledge to ledge in the writhing and twisting steamer, you have a vague sense that all this is perhaps an achievement rather than an enjoyment.  When, descending the Long Sault, you look back up hill, and behold those billows leaping down the steep slope after you, “No doubt,” you confide to your soul, “it is magnificent; but it is not pleasure.”  You greet with silent satisfaction the level river, stretching between the Long Sault and the Coteau, and you admire the delightful tranquillity of that beautiful Lake St. Francis into which it expands.  Then the boat shudders into the Coteau Rapids, and down through the Cedars and Cascades.  On the rocks of the last lies the skeleton of a steamer wrecked upon them, and gnawed at still by the white-tusked wolfish rapids.  No one, they say, was lost from her.  “But how,” Basil thought, “would it fare with all these people packed here upon her bow, if the Banshee should swing round upon a ledge?” As to Isabel, she looked upon the wrecked steamer with indifference, as did all the women; but then they could not swim, and would not have to save themselves.  “The La Chine’s to come yet,” they exulted, “and that ’s the awfullest of all!”

They passed the Lake St. Louis; the La Chin; rapids flashed into sight.  The captain rose up from his seat, took his pipe from his mouth, and waved a silence with it.  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, “it’s very important in passing these rapids to keep the boat perfectly trim.  Please to remain just as you are.”

It was twilight, for the boat was late.  From the Indian village on the shore they signaled to know if he wanted the local pilot; the captain refused; and then the steamer plunged into the leaping waves.  From rock to rock she swerved and sank; on the last ledge she scraped with a deadly touch that went to the heart.