"How many blows I gave him I cannot say: as little, which was the first. It was quickly done. I drew the dagger out of the left sleeve, where I had secured it in a sheath, and gave him several stabs in the left side. Kotzebue spoke not a word during the attack, only uttered a cry of alarm, the instant that he saw me rush upon him with uplifted arm. He stretched out his hands, and fell immediately at the entrance of the room on the left hand, about three steps from the same. How I should have wounded him in the face I know not. Probably it may have happened through his holding his hands and arms before him, and moving them about. I held the dagger so that the edge was above the thumb and the fist, and struck directly out, neither from above nor from below. Kotzebue fell together in a sitting posture. I then looked him in the face to see how it was with him. I wished to ascertain the effect of the attack, and a second time looked him in the face. He continually winked with his eyelids, so that one could now see the whites of his eyes, and now nothing. I therefore concluded that he was not dead; but I interfered no further with him, because I was persuaded that enough had been done." Sand having completed his act, turned towards the window in order to regain his old standing place, but that turn produced a deciding influence on his fate. "I saw," said he, "in turning round, a little child, which during the deed had sprung into the room from the left-hand door. Its cry produced in me such a mingled feeling that I was instantly determined to recompense it for the injury I had done it by stabbing myself with the small sword. The blow struck on the left breast, and went several inches deep. I drew forth the steel, and the effect was an instant gush of blood, which I perceived as I descended the stairs became, with the pain, more perceptible."