I took my place solidly against it.

Le Marchant climbed up onto my shoulders, flung the end of his hammock over the spiked top till it caught with its cordage, and in a moment he was sitting among the teeth up above.

Another moment, and I was alongside him, peering down into the danger ring below, while the rain thrashed down upon us so furiously that it was all we could do to see or hear.

We could, indeed, see nothing save what was right under our hands, for the dead blackness of the night was a thing to be felt.
There was no sound or sign of wardership.

It seemed as though what I had hardly dared to hope had come to pass,--as though, in a word, that urgent call to the other side of the enclosure, to forestall an escape or assist at the fire, had bared this side of guards.
We crouched there among the sharp points, listening intently; then, taking our lives in our hands, we dropped the hammock on the outside of the palisade and slipped gently down.
My heart was beating a tattoo as loud as that in the soldiers' quarters, as we sped across the black space which had baffled us so long, and not another sound did we hear save the splashing of the rain.
My hammock helped us over the outer palisade in the same way as the other, and we stood for a moment in the rain and darkness, panting and shaking,--free men.
We made for the void in front, with no thought but of placing the greatest possible distance between ourselves and the prison in the shortest possible time.