“Evans.”
“Fentress.”
“Speed.”
“Speed.”
Phil was elected.
CHAPTER XXII
GOOD-BY
The ceremony of good-bys was short following Phil’s election to return as a messenger of warning to the other prisoners concerning the fiendish plot for their destruction. Pew words of advice were exchanged as to what each escaping prisoner should do. It was a case of everybody for himself with no sure promise of success for anybody. Nobody knew any more than anybody else concerning the country through which they must pass or how they might hope to conceal themselves in the daytime, or how obtain food for their already hungry stomachs. Everybody must work his wits to the limit.
This, in fact, seemed to be the general understanding, for each of the escaping prisoners apparently took it for granted that the responsibility for his own success or failure in this most important venture rested entirely on himself. No questions were asked. Everybody seemed to desire to strike out for himself as soon as possible. A few went in pairs, but most of them set out alone.
Tim said good-by to Phil last. The bullet-headed corporal, who had proved himself a boy of no mean intelligence by the manner in which he had got evidence of the wholesale-murder plot of “Count Topoff” and Aviator Hertz and reported it to his friends, was evidently much disappointed because he had not been elected to return to the prison camp of his comrade Marines and Frenchmen and warn them against the menace that would soon be upon them.
“I’m sorry I’m not going with you,” he said to his friend. “I envy you very much, old man, for while the rest of us are running away, you are going back to fight. That’s what it means, Phil, a very hard fight, and a lot of credit to you for preventing a wholesale and cowardly slaughter.”