He muttered a short prayer to God for courage and strength, and the lashings of the cruel yoke fell apart, and he drew his head through, free. Free! not yet.
He stood up silently, walked straight to a tree deliberately but noiselessly, chose a couple of spears, a gun, a powder horn, and a cartouche box, and began to withdraw as stealthily as he had advanced.
It seemed an age to him, the time before he began to congratulate himself that he was safe; for so precious were the articles in his possession, and so rich seemed the prospect of freedom.
A few long strides brought him from tree to tree, and the more he counted of these trees the more certain was he of safety. Tree after tree was passed, their tall thick columns—taller and thicker by night—formed a denser rampart between him and his enemies, an impenetrable protection against pursuit.
Finally, he was free! Free he felt, freely he walked, freely he thought, and the new idea, as it settled in his mind, seemed to fill him to strangling, it had such power of expansion; the lungs were more inflated, the stride became firmer, the head assumed a prouder air, and the back of him straightened rigid!
He was impelled forward, fatigue seemed to fly from him, an eager urgency of movement seemed to have come upon him; he was walking against time for freedom!
An endless number of dark solemn trees were passed, countless numbers of acres in front, behind, and around him, of this tree-covered upland, and still it remained night. To darkness there seemed no end, nor did he want it to have end; he wished it would ever remain night and his enemies ever sleep.
But though the night was long, and friendlily sheltered him with its kind mantle of impenetrability, through which a fugitive was not visible, it had an end, for all things have an end; but Selim and the Watuta camp were far apart!
Daylight—a dull grey mantle seemingly, which night had put on for a fickle change—appeared, but greyer and greyer it came through the foliage above; it then came pale, and then a steely blue. A streak of silver light shot athwart his path; the foliage was a bright green, and the leaves moved responsively, gently sighing to the morning wind!
How cool, how fresh it was! How newly-born seemed the world, while the hum of busy insect life told him there were other creatures, after their rest, rejoicing in the new light of day!