But the unfortunate soldier, that he has left stretched out by the river-side, has found strength before dying to fire his gun. The sharp report rouses both banks of the river. Impossible to land. We quickly push out into the middle of the stream, and row hard up the river. It is all like a bad dream. The wind and current, everything is against us. A boat pushes off from the lock, coming straight at us, lighted by a torch which dips up and down as it watches for us, while another boat approaches us in a contrary direction. —To the dredger . . . whispers Goudeloup in my ear. [Picture: On the steps by the lock] Near us, moored some fifty or sixty feet from the shore, a dredging-boat reared its black mass above the water, with its barrels and bucket-chain to clear away the sand. The Seine was very high, and the water half covered it, dashing against its bows with vehemence. We board her, but in our haste to take refuge on this wreck we forget to fasten our boat, which floats off with the rugs and provision it contains. This saves us. Five minutes later a formidable “hurrah” tells us the Prussians have just found our boat. Seeing it empty, they must have thought we were drowned, engulfed; for a few moments after, the torches returned to the shore, and the whole river resumed its silence and darkness . . . [Picture: Swimming to the dredger] The dredger on which we found ourselves was a complete wreck—a curious shelter, crackling and creaking all over, and furiously lashed by the waters. On the deck, covered with splinters of wood and pieces of cast iron, the cold was intolerable. We were obliged to take refuge in the engine-room, to which the water happily had not yet penetrated. It would soon, however, reach it, for in several places the sides of the room were cracked almost down to the level of the waves, and we found ourselves lighted by the leaden reflection of the darkness on the water. What gloomy hours we spent there! Hunger, fear, and the terrible cold numbing our limbs with a feeling of drowsiness against which we were obliged to struggle . . . All around, the water seethed, the wood groaned, the bucket-chain creaked in its rustiness, and aloft, above our heads, something like the rag of a drenched flag flapped in the wind. We impatiently waited for daybreak, not knowing exactly what distance separated us from the land, nor how we should be able to reach it. In our fitful slumbers, broken as they were by anxious thoughts of escape, the shaking of the dredging-boat and the sound of the water surrounding us, gave me at times the impression of a long voyage and a stormy night at sea . . .