hardly dared to hope had come to pass,--as though, in a word, that urgent
call to the other side of the enclosure, to forestall an escape or assist
at the fire, had bared this side of guards.

We crouched there among the sharp points, listening intently; then, taking
our lives in our hands, we dropped the hammock on the outside of the
palisade and slipped gently down.

My heart was beating a tattoo as loud as that in the soldiers' quarters, as
we sped across the black space which had baffled us so long, and not
another sound did we hear save the splashing of the rain.

My hammock helped us over the outer palisade in the same way as the other,
and we stood for a moment in the rain and darkness, panting and
shaking,--free men.

We made for the void in front, with no thought but of placing the greatest
possible distance between ourselves and the prison in the shortest possible
time. We plunged into bogs and scrambled through to the farther side, eager
bundles of dripping slime, and sped on and on through the rain and
darkness--free men, and where we went we knew not, only that it was from
prison.

For a time the flicker of the burning house showed us where the prison lay,
and directed us from it. But this soon died down, and we were left to make
our own course, with no guide but the drenching rain. We had headed into it
when we loosed from the palisade, and we continued to breast it.

No smaller prize than freedom, no weaker spur than the prison behind would
have carried men through what we underwent that night. We ran till our