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 breath came sorely, and then we trudged doggedly, with set teeth, and hands clenched, as though by them we clung to desperate hope. Twice when we plunged into black waters we had to swim, and Le Marchant was not much of a swimmer. But there I was able to help him, and when we touched ground we scrambled straight up high banks and went on. And the darkness, if it gave us many a fall, was still our friend.
But my recollections of that night are confused and shadowy. It was one long plunge through stormy blackness, water above, water below, with tightened breath and shaking limbs, and the one great glowing thought inside that we were free of the cramping prison, and that now everything depended on ourselves.
Scarce one word did we speak, every breath was of consequence. Hand in hand we went, lest in that blackness of darkness we should lose one another and never come together again. For the thick streaming blackness of that night was a thing to be felt and not to be forgotten. Never had I felt so like a lost soul condemned to endless struggle for it knew not what. For whether we were keeping a straight course, or were wandering round and round, we had no smallest idea, and we had not a single star to guide us.
It was terribly hard travelling. When we struck on tussocks of the wiry grass we were grateful, but for the most part we were falling with bone-breaking jerks into miry pitfalls, or tumbling into space as we ran, and coming up with a splash and a struggle in some deep pool or wide-flowing ditch.
There is a limit, however, to human endurance, even where liberty is at stake. We trod air one time, in that disconcerting way which jarred one more than many a mile of travel, and landed heavily in the slime below, and 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."