To begin with, the installation would cost too much, and then it would be a crime to leave at hand a constant danger of death. The Germans were brutes, it was well known, but even they would never dare to encircle their prisoners by a current of 5000 volts. The rumour was, unfortunately, true. Only the evening before, a well-known man in the French colony had somewhat reassured the timorous by his learned arguments, and now the nightmare had become reality. The jailers, jealous of their sandy soil, begrudged a few feet to our prisoners, already cramped in a place whose narrow limits were terribly oppressive. All round the perimeter the Germans were going to cut off three or four metres to make an impassable barrier; inside a double enclosure of barbed wire they were going to install a third line of electrified wire which would ensure death to any one touching it. Everybody lamented the loss of this narrow run of earth, which was the promenade, the boulevard, the forum. There we walked as far as possible to the outside of the camp, our eyes turned towards the neighbouring forest, into which we gazed longingly, and the sight of which enabled some of us to enjoy the illusion of liberty. The eyes which turned from the hideous tents, where we lived crowded together, lit up sometimes with a brighter glance at the happy remembrance of a walk with our dear ones in a similar forest far away. This illusion, this shadowy remembrance, was to be taken from us! We had been able until now, by approaching near enough, to overlook one barrier, but the presence of three lines of barbed wire between us and the forest would destroy its lure, and increase the weight of our chains and the misery of our captivity.