Without perceiving it we had reached the edge of a precipice and were hurled over it.... While I was yet in the air--so rapid is thought!--I remembered that the body of the Arab would break my fall. I could distinctly see under me a white burnous with a large red patch on it, and I should fall on it, head or tail. It was not such a terrible leap as I feared, thanks to the water being high; I went in over head and ears and sputtered for an instant quite stunned, and I do not know quite how I found myself standing in the middle of the tall reeds at the river's edge. I knew nothing of what had become of Sidi-Lala and the horses. I was dripping and shivering in the mud, between two walls of rock. I took a few steps forward, hoping to find a place where the declivity was less steep; but the further I advanced the more abrupt and inaccessible it looked. Suddenly I heard above my head the sound of horses' hoofs and the jangling of sabres against stirrups and spurs; it was evidently our squadron. I wanted to cry out, but not a sound would come out of my throat; I must in my fall have broken in my ribs. Imagine the situation I was in. I heard the voices of our men and recognised them, and I could not call them to my aid. "If he had let me do that," old Wagner was saying, "he would have lived to be made colonel." The sound soon lessened and died away, and I heard it no more. Above my head hung a great branch, and I hoped by seizing this to hoist myself up above the banks of the river. With a desperate effort I sprang up, and ... crack!... the branch twisted and escaped from my hands with a frightful hissing.... It was an enormous snake.... I fell back into the water; the serpent glided between my legs and shot into the river, where it seemed to leave a trail of fire.... A moment later I had regained my sang-froid, and the fire-light had not disappeared: it still trembled on the water. I saw it was the reflection from a torch. A score of steps from me a woman was filling a pitcher at the river with one hand, and in the other she held a lighted piece of resined wood. She had no idea I was there; she placed the pitcher coolly upon her head and, torch in hand, disappeared among the rushes. I followed her and found I was at the entrance to a cave. The woman advanced very quietly and mounted a very steep incline; it was a sort of staircase cut out of the face of an immense hall. By the torchlight I saw the threshold of this great hall, which did not quite reach the level of the river; but I could not judge of its full extent. Without quite knowing what I did, I entered the slope after the young woman who carried the torch, and followed her at a distance. Now and again her light disappeared behind some cavity of the rocks, but I soon found her again.