What a relief it was to find ourselves in the river! The battle, we thought, was practically over. All we had got to do was to forge ahead at full speed towards Holland and liberty. But, as events proved, we were slightly mistaken in our calculations. The boilers of the _Anna_ were now heated to fourteen atmospheres, and away we went at as great a speed as was prudent in the semi-darkness. After we had proceeded for several miles, Baldens, who had been making sure that the captain was in a more reasonable state of mind, joined me on deck, and, with a grave face, said:-- "Prost, we're not out of the wood yet. The captain's still inclined to foam at the mouth and make trouble, though I've granted him the favour of ungagging him. No sooner had I done that than he began to 'strafe' me and you and everybody, and swore we'd get caught yet, because of the electric cable which the Boches have stretched across the Meuse between Lanaye and Eysden. We must now be getting pretty near the danger zone. Keep your weather-eye open, Prost, for I'm told there's a motor-boat there with machine-guns aboard." And, sure enough, a quarter of an hour later I spotted this electric cable. Instructions were at once given to the engineer to put on his utmost speed, and everybody save the man at the rudder, was ordered off the deck. The only thing to do was to try to cut through the obstacle. There was no resisting the heavy weight of the _Anna_. She snapped the wire easily, but as it broke, with an immense flash like summer lightning, one end, unfortunately, got entangled with our screw and rudder, which broke as though it had been made of glass. However, the dreaded motor-boat did not put in an appearance (I suppose the men were still fast asleep), and the tug drifted slowly onwards. The _Anna_ was now completely helpless, and before we had drifted very far she stuck in the mud--fortunately well within Dutch waters. Needless to say we lost no time in utilizing our third and last boat, and in about an hour everybody, including the still unruly Boche captain, whom Baldens disembarked last of all, was ashore. Meanwhile, the four German sentries in charge of the cable had awakened and, finding the line broken, had got their electric searchlights to work and ultimately located us. It was too late then, however, for them to think of capturing us. They dare not come on to Dutch territory, nor was it prudent for them to fire a shot in our direction. As to their searchlights, they were actually of use to us, since they lit up, here and there, the still dark and unknown ground on which, for a time, we wandered, ere we came to a friendly Dutch dwelling house, where we inquired our way to the nearest village.