When through the holes in the room, which were blackened and torn as if by a bombardment, we saw the river catch the first light of a sullen winter’s morning, we tried to make out our position. The slopes of Juvisy commanded the farther bank, rising above the fog, which its tall trees pierced with their bare tops. On the opposite shore, eighty or a hundred feet beyond the dredger, lay the flat, bare plains of Draveil, stretching away into the far distance, without trace of a soldier on them. Evidently that was the side we could escape by. The anticipation of a cold bath, in the month of December, in that deep, foaming, and swift-running water, was rather terrifying. However, the iron chain that moored the dredger to the bank was happily still fastened to its ring, and we had the resource left of clinging to it and being guided by it. While we were discussing this, a cannon was fired off rather close at hand, from the heights of Juvisy, followed up immediately by the whistle of a shell and its splash in the water near us. A few seconds later, before we had recovered from our astonishment, a second shell fell near the dredger. Then I understood the flag, the splinters of wood, the pieces of cast iron, and the smell of burnt powder we had noticed in the cabin. The Prussians were using the old dredger as a target for their cannons. It was absolutely necessary to quit at once. The cold and the dangers of the river sank into insignificance. Forward we must go. I seized hold of the chain with both hands and lowered myself rapidly into the river, Goudeloup following me. Our fingers were skinned by the chafing iron: we advanced but slowly, numbed by the current and the icy water. A fresh cannon-shot redoubles our energy. Look out! Here comes the shell. This time it falls full on the iron-plated front of the dredger, bursts, and covers us with the wreckage. I hear behind me a deep sigh . . . No, never shall I forget the last agonising motion of that chain, which I felt move, struggle for a second, and then rise up quickly in the water, loose, free, and light in my hands . . . [Picture: They get into the river again] I turned round; no one to be seen. Nothing but a mass of blood floating away on the stream. The unfortunate fellow must have been struck on the head and killed on the spot . . . A feeling of intense despair overcame me. My companion slaughtered beside me, and I helpless to succour him . . . A little more and I too must have let go the chain; but the instinct of life won the day, and a few minutes later I landed on the bank, but to get no farther. After a dozen steps, overcome by the anxiety, fatigue, and terrible cold which penetrated through all my wet clothes, I dropped down by the roadside on the dry grass of a ditch. The well-known trot of a horse, the roll of an old cabriolet, and the kind voice of Doctor R— drew me from my lethargy. —What! it is you? . . . What are you doing there?