We plunged into bogs and scrambled through to the farther side, eager bundles of dripping slime, and sped on and on through the rain and darkness--free men, and where we went we knew not, only that it was from prison.
For a time the flicker of the burning house showed us where the prison lay, and directed us from it.

But this soon died down, and we were left to make our own course, with no guide but the drenching rain.

We had headed into it when we loosed from the palisade, and we continued to breast it.
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.