30. The next entry has been evidently water-soaked and is entirely blotted out.
31. This entry seems sufficiently distinct to make out what the writer has been through:
"I tried in the foregoing to jot down enough of what was happening to enable anyone who would find our bodies to make out how we had died…. What I forgot to record in the excitement I'll put down now…. When the wall caved in and the water burst down upon us it seemed that we would soon be drowned alive…. The small hole in the wall had allowed enough water to filter through at first to slake our thirst and make us all quite happy…. But gradually the ground beneath us became damp and sticky and the blue mud clung to our shoes like glue until we could hardly move…. The little air that crept in with the water, though, was a positive blessing to us all…. We should have stifled…. Finally the water ceased and our hearts began to sink….
"… It was Maria who brought on the FLOOD I have learned today…. With a stone she found uncovered by the filtering from the little opening she began pounding against the wall…. Suddenly the wall bulged inward…. There was a swish, and a roar, and a deadening GUSH,—and then a RUSHING FLOOD tore open the side of the wall and burst like a torrent into our muddy, narrow cell. Higher and higher it mounted, enveloping us to our arm pits…. My 'prisoner' moved calmly over to the stately woman, who was holding up the boy, and patted her gently on the head. 'It will be all right, darling,' he said…. Then he kissed all his children and impulsively dashed in the direction of the cataract.
"… Struggling hard against the flood he worked his way nearer and nearer toward the broken curbing and finally DOVE through the waterspout and clung grimly to the wall…. For a moment his body seemed to tremble…. Then with a supreme effort he pulled his body into the opening and for a moment checked the flood…. It seemed like a gallant sacrifice…. at the same time…. the girl, Maria, waded back toward the opening that was NOW completely SEALED BY THE STICKY CLAY and began to tear frantically at the bank….
"Little by little she seemed to make headway…. But it appeared like an eternity,—and I felt certain that the man in the wall using his body as a plug must presently give up the ghost and be hurled back into our cell…. I then noticed the water around us DROP quickly, and, turning in the direction of Maria I saw her body being caught up by the current and sucked painfully forward into the opening her delicate hands had made…. It was too horrible to endure!… Now, while there is no blood of martyrs in my veins, and while I had PROMISED the sombre figure in Berlin TO DO A CERTAIN THING which a martyr impulse might prevent if I tried to be a hero in this instance, I simply could not look at that girl's struggles without going to her rescue no matter what it cost…."
32. The following then appears:
"I have no recollection of what happened after I grasped Maria by the feet…. All I remember is that I felt myself being dragged along after her through a blinding sheet of muddy, gritty substance, head foremost like a drowning man…. I imagined myself in mid-ocean clinging to some broken shaft after my vessel had been torpedoed, and I clung to those slender ankles as the only hope of life!… When I did recover there was Maria bending over me and vigorously see-sawing my arms back and forth in an effort to resuscitate me…. If ever there were an excuse for the chivalry of the Middle Ages it must have crept out of those dark moments when some puissant knight opened his tired eyelids upon a vision such as I then beheld!… But there was no time for Don Quixoting in that damp and muddy tunnel…. We noticed that the waters neither rose nor fell…. So we plowed our way back to the other members of our party as speedily as we could…. On arriving at the wall again we found my 'prisoner' lying propped up against a large slab of concrete and breathing heavily while he held the Empress' hand and essayed a feeble smile…."
33. The following entry seems to dovetail in:
"The walls of this old cistern promise very little assurance for our escape…. Still the cistern has its uses in circumstances like these…. We KNOW, at least, that some kind of human beings are not beyond our voices if we decide to call for help…. But WHAT KIND of help?… That is the question…. Last night, as I stood on the floor of the cistern I heard an amusing conversation…. A voice overhead was growling; 'I'm as certain as I'm alive that the loan of $250,000,000 has been made by Japan to those fiends who have escaped,—and I KNOW they have the GOLD, for why have those trucks disappeared?… so it is worth while to keep up this revolution until we get our hands on some of it if we have to follow them all the way to Vladivostok.'… 'That rumor has been floating around for the past week,' another bass voice grumbled, 'and I'm inclined to think it is all a game of bunko to divert attention from the pile of 600,000,000 the gang have smuggled into Omsk.'… 'Nonsense,' grunted the other; 'haven't we a thousand eyes at Harbin who know about the Chinese Eastern deal?'… 'Well, the only thing to do is to keep this hell in a constant bubble until we get the stuff at Omsk or the coin Japan has sent to this CREMATED FAMILY here!'…