Le Marchant lay and made no attempt to rise. I groped till I found him, and
hauled him to solider ground, and he lay there coughing and choking, and at
last sobbing angrily, not with weakness of soul but from sheer lack of
strength to move.

"Go on! Go on!" he gasped, as soon as he could speak. "I'm done. Get you
along!"

"I'm done too," I said, and in truth I could not have gone much farther.
"We'll rest here till daybreak, then we can see where we are."

He had no breath for argument, and we lay in the muddy sedge till our
hearts had settled to a more reasonable beat, and we had breath for speech.

"How far have we come, do you think?" Le Marchant asked.

"It felt like fifty miles, but it was such rough work that it's probably
nearer five. But it can't be long to daylight. Then we shall know better."

We struggled to a drier hummock and lay down again. The rain had ceased,
and presently, while we lay watching for the first flicker of dawn in front
or on our left, an exclamation from Le Marchant brought me round with a
jerk, to find the sky softening and lightening right behind us. The ditches
and the darkness and our many falls had led us astray. Instead of going due
east we had fetched a compass and bent round to the north; instead of
leaving our prison we had circled round it. And as the shadows lightened on
the long dim flats, we saw in the distance the black ring of the stockade
on its little elevation.

"Let us get on," said Le Marchant, with a groan at the wasted energies of