"For some time past, she had been getting very heavy, and that inconvenienced her very much. She could not run about as she used to do, nor jump from the boat to the shore, as she had formerly done. She would try, in spite of our warnings and efforts to stop her, and she would have fallen a dozen times, had it not been that our restraining arms kept her back. On that day, she was imprudent enough to wish to land before the boat had stopped; it was one of those pieces of bravado by which athletes, who are ill or tired, sometimes kill themselves, and at the very moment when we were going to come alongside, she got up, took a spring and tried to jump onto the landing-stage. She was not strong enough, however, and only just touched the stones with her foot, struck the sharp angle with her stomach, uttered a cry and disappeared into the water. "We all five plunged in at the same moment, and pulled out the poor, fainting woman, who was as pale as death, and was already suffering terrible pain, and we carried her as quickly as possible to the nearest inn, and sent for a medical man. For the six hours that her miscarriage lasted, she suffered the most terrible pain with the courage of a heroine, while we were grieving round her, feverish with anxiety and fear. Then she was delivered of a dead child, and for some days we were in the greatest fear for her life; at last, however, the doctor said to us one morning: 'I think her life is saved. That girl is made of steel,' and we all of us went into her room, with radiant hearts, and Only-One-Eye, as spokesman for us all, said to her: 'The danger is all over, little Fly, and we are all happy again.' "Then, for the second time, she wept in our presence, and, with her eyes full of tears, she said, hesitatingly: "'Oh! If you only knew, if you only knew ... what a grief it is ... what a grief it is to me ... I shall never get over it.' 'Over what, little Fly?' 'Over having killed it, for I did kill it! Oh! Without intending to! Oh! how grieved I am!...' "She was sobbing, and we stood round, deeply touched, but without knowing what to say, and she went on: 'Have you seen it?' And we replied with one voice: 'Yes.' 'It was a boy, was it not?' 'Yes.' 'Beautiful, was it not?' We hesitated a good deal, but Petit-Bleu, who was less scrupulous than the rest of us, made up his mind to affirm it, and said: 'Very beautiful.' "He committed a mistake, however, for she began to sob, and almost to scream with grief, and Only-One-Eye, who perhaps loved her more than the rest of us did, had a happy thought. Kissing her eyes, that were dimmed with tears, he said: 'Console yourself, little Fly, console yourself; we will make another for you.' "Her innate sense of the ridiculous was suddenly excited, and half-convinced, and half-joking, still tearful and her heart sore with grief, she said, looking at us all: 'Do you really mean it?' And we replied all at once: "'We really mean it.'" THE MAD WOMAN