There were swamps, and dank, tangled, poisonous vines, and venomous snakes, and the sickening breath of fever.

_But he delivered the message to Garcia._ It was sixty miles, Tom knew, from Aumale to Dieppe by the road.

And he must reach Dieppe not later than five o'clock.

The road was a good road, if it held nothing unexpected.

The map showed it to be a good road, and as far west as this there was small danger from shell holes.
Fifty miles, and one hour! Swiftly along the dark road sped the dispatch-rider who had come from the far-off blue hills of Alsace across the war-scorched area of northern France into the din and fire and stenching suffocation and red-running streams of Picardy _for service as required_.