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.