Then they remained motionless, filled anew with terror.  And they waited.

The little fellow squeezed his brother’s hands with all his might and wept from nervousness as he repeated:  “I cannot drag you out, I cannot drag you out.”  And all at once he began to shout, “Help!  Help!” But his light voice scarcely penetrated beyond the dome of foliage above their heads.

They remained thus a long time, hours and hours, facing each other, these two children, with one thought, one anguish of heart and the horrible dread that one of them, exhausted, might let go the hands of the other.  And they kept on calling, but all in vain.

At length the older boy, who was shivering with cold, said to the little one:  “I cannot hold out any longer.  I am going to fall.  Good-by, little brother.”  And the other, gasping, replied:  “Not yet, not yet, wait.”

Evening came on, the still evening with its stars mirrored in the water.  The older lad, his endurance giving out, said:  “Let go my hand, I am going to give you my watch.”  He had received it as a present a few days before, and ever since it had been his chief amusement.  He was able to get hold of it, and held it out to the little fellow who was sobbing and who laid it down on the grass beside him.

It was night now.  The two unhappy beings, exhausted, had almost loosened their grasp.  The elder, at last, feeling that he was lost, murmured once more:  “Good-by, little brother, kiss mamma and papa.”  And his numbed fingers relaxed their hold.  He sank and did not rise again . . . .  The little fellow, left alone, began to shout wildly:  “Paul!  Paul!” But the other did not come to the surface.

Then he darted across the mountain, falling among the stones, overcome by the most frightful anguish that can wring a child’s heart, and with a face like death reached the sitting-room, where his parents were waiting.  He became bewildered again as he led them to the gloomy reservoir.  He could not find his way.  At last he reached the spot.  “It is there; yes, it is there!”

But the cistern had to be emptied, and the proprietor would not permit it as he needed the water for his lemon trees.

The two bodies were found, however, but not until the next day.

You see, my dear friend, that this is a simple news item.  But if you had seen the hole itself your heart would have been wrung, as mine was, at the thought of the agony of that child hanging to his brother’s hands, of the long suspense of those little chaps who were accustomed only to laugh and to play, and at the simple incident of the giving of the watch.

I said to myself:  “May Fate preserve me from ever receiving a similar relic!” I know of nothing more terrible than such a recollection connected with a familiar object that one cannot dispose of.  Only think of it; each time that he handles this sacred watch the survivor will picture once more the horrible scene; the pool, the wall, the still water, and the distracted face of his brother-alive, and yet as lost as though he were already dead.  And all through his life, at any moment, the vision will be there, awakened the instant even the tip of his finger touches his watch pocket.