below.  It was cold and damp, and I walked quickly.  At last I came out on a road, past houses and barking dogs, down to the river bank; there I sat against a shed and went to sleep.  I woke very stiff.  It was darker than before; the moon was gone.  I could just see the river.  I stumbled on, to get through the town before dawn.  It was all black shapes-houses and sheds, and the smell of the river, the smell of rotting hay, apples, tar, mud, fish; and here and there on a wharf a lantern.  I stumbled over casks and ropes and boxes; I saw I should never get clear—­the dawn had begun already on the other side.  Some men came from a house behind me.  I bent, and crept behind some barrels.  They passed along the wharf; they seemed to drop into the river.  I heard one of them say:  ‘Passau before night.’  I stood up and saw they had walked on board a steamer which was lying head up-stream, with some barges in tow.  There was a plank laid to the steamer, and a lantern at the other end.  I could hear the fellows moving below deck, getting up steam.  I ran across the plank and crept to the end of the steamer.  I meant to go with them to Passau!  The rope which towed the barges was nearly taut; and I knew if I could get on to the barges I should be safe.  I climbed down on this rope and crawled along.  I was desperate, I knew they’d soon be coming up, and it was getting light.  I thought I should fall into the water several times, but I got to the barge at last.  It was laden with straw.  There was nobody on board.  I was hungry and thirsty—­I looked for something to eat; there was nothing but the ashes of a fire and a man’s coat.  I crept into the straw.  Soon a boat brought men, one for each barge, and there were sounds of steam.  As soon as we began moving through the water, I fell asleep.  When I woke we were creeping through a heavy mist.  I made a little hole in the straw and saw the bargeman.  He was sitting by a fire at the barge’s edge, so that the sparks and smoke blew away over the water.  He ate and drank with both hands, and funny enough he looked in the mist, like a big bird flapping its wings; there was a good smell of coffee, and I sneezed.  How the fellow started!  But presently he took a pitchfork and prodded the straw.  Then I stood up.  I couldn’t help laughing, he was so surprised—­a huge, dark man, with a great black beard.  I pointed to the fire and said ‘Give me some, brother!’ He pulled me out of the straw; I was so stiff, I couldn’t move.  I sat by the fire, and ate black bread and turnips, and drank coffee; while he stood by, watching me and muttering.  I couldn’t understand him well—­he spoke a dialect from Hungary.  He asked me:  How I got there—­who I was—­where I was from?  I looked up in his face, and he looked down at me, sucking his pipe.  He was a big man, he lived alone on the river, and I was tired of telling lies, so I told him the whole thing.  When I had done he just grunted.  I can see