the night.

"I believe we're safer here. If they seek us it will be farther away.
They'd never think we'd be such fools as to stop within a couple of miles
of the prison."

And, indeed, before I had done speaking, we could make out the tiny black
figures of patrols setting off along the various roads that led through the
swamps, and so we lay still, and watched the black figures disappear to the
east and south and north.

So long as we kept hidden I had no great fear of them, for the swamps were
honeycombed with hiding-places, and to beat them thoroughly would have
required one hundred men to every one they could spare.

"I'm not at all sure it's us they're after," I said, by way of cheer for us
both. "All that turmoil last night and the fire makes me think some of the
others in Number Three were on the same job."

"Like enough, but I don't see that it helps us much. Can we find anything
to eat?"

But we had come away too hurriedly to make any provision, and we knew too
little of the roots among which we lay to venture any of them. So we lay,
hungry and sodden, in spite of the sun which presently set the flats
steaming, and did not dare to move lest some sharp eye should spy us. We
could only hope for night and stars, and then sooner or later to come
across some place where food could be got, if it was only green grain out
of a field, for our stomachs were calling uneasily.