Wonderful to relate! I was lying in the coach as before, but all round the coach, half a foot, not more, from its edge, a sheet of water lay shining in the moonlight, broken up into tiny, distinct, quivering eddies. I looked in front. On the box, with back bowed and head bent, Filofey was sitting like a statue, and a little further on, above the rippling water, I saw the curved arch of the yoke, and the horses' heads and backs. And everything as motionless, as noiseless, as though in some enchanted realm, in a dream--a dream of fairyland.... 'What does it mean?' I looked back from under the hood of the coach.... 'Why, we are in the middle of the river!'... the bank was thirty paces from us. 'Filofey!' I cried. 'What?' he answered. 'What, indeed! Upon my word! Where are we?' 'In the river.' 'I see we're in the river. But, like this, we shall be drowned directly. Is this how you cross the ford? Eh? Why, you're asleep, Filofey! Answer, do!' 'I've made a little mistake,' observed my guide; 'I've gone to one side, a bit wrong, but now we've got to wait a bit.' 'Got to wait a bit? What ever are we going to wait for?' 'Well, we must let the shaggy one look about him; which way he turns his head, that way we've got to go.' I raised myself on the hay. The shaft-horse's head stood quite motionless. Above the head one could only see in the bright moonlight one ear slightly twitching backwards and forwards. 'Why, he's asleep too, your shaggy one!' 'No,' responded Filofey,' 'he's sniffing the water now.' And everything was still again; there was only the faint gurgle of the water as before. I sank into a state of torpor. Moonlight, and night, and the river, and we in it.... 'What is that croaking noise?' I asked Filofey. 'That? Ducks in the reeds... or else snakes.' All of a sudden the head of the shaft-horse shook, his ears pricked up; he gave a snort, began to move. 'Ho-ho, ho-ho-o!' Filofey began suddenly bawling at the top of his voice; he sat up and brandished the whip. The coach was at once tugged away from where it had stuck, it plunged forward, cleaving the waters of the river, and moved along, swaying and lurching from side to side.... At first it seemed to me we were sinking, getting deeper; however, after two or three tugs and jolts, the expanse of water seemed suddenly lower.... It got lower and lower, the coach seemed to grow up out of it, and now the wheels and the horses' tails could be seen, and now stirring with a mighty splashing of big drops, scattering showers of diamonds--no, not diamonds--sapphires in the dull brilliance of the moon, the horses with a spirited pull all together drew us on to the sandy bank and trotted along the road to the hill-side, their shining white legs flashing in rivalry.