"Oh, she's dead enough, I'm afraid."
"I don't know about that."
"Bring it in just as it is," repeated the official, adjusting a rope to the mysterious thing beneath the body.
"Sacré bleu! And if she's alive?"
"Poor doggie! He's about done for too."
And so it really seemed, for Tartar lay in the bottom of the boat, still breathing, but in convulsive gasps. In his teeth remained a portion of the child's clothing, torn away with him. He had hung to his charge to the last. His jaws had never relaxed.
In the mean time the whole fleet with its spoils had been floating steadily down with the powerful current. Amidst the wrangle of contending voices, and with some angry altercation, the police boat and its accompanying consorts were towing the yet unknown object and its silent burden towards the shore.
This was not an easy job, since the river becomes more narrow as it threads the city, and the current proportionately stronger, and the undertow caught at the low-hanging mass as if determined to bear it down to the morgue just below. They had been carried under the Pont de Bercy and were drawing near the Quai d'Austerlitz. Finally they got ashore at the Gare d'Orléans.
"Parbleu! it's a little chiffonnière!"
"Truly!"