He who knew the way to swim against stream ten miles an hour, was just now unable to walk half a dozen paces on solid ground.
"Best shove him in the sack again," growled the other man.
The bare mention of that sack startled poor Percy to his feet.

If he might only have spoken he could easily have explained the trifling difficulty which prevented his "stepping out." As it was, all he could do was to struggle forward bravely for a few more paces, and then again fall.

The men seemed to perceive that there was something more than mere playfulness in this twice-repeated performance, and solved the difficulty by clutching him one under each arm, and materially assisting his progress by dragging him.
Any of Percy's acquaintances would have been greatly shocked had they been privileged to witness this triumphal midnight progress across the moors; his dragging legs feebly trying to imitate the motions of walking, but looking much more like kneeling, his head dropped forward on his chest, his shoulders elevated by the grip of his conductors under his pinioned arms, and his eyes bandaged as never a blind-man's-buff could bind them.
It was a long weary march that; but to Percy it was luxury compared with the morning among the flies on the hut floor.

His conductors settled into a jog-trot, which the light weight of the boy did not much impede; and Percy, finding the motion not difficult, and on the whole soothing, dropped off into a half-doze, which greatly assisted in passing the time.
At length, however, he became aware of a halt and a hurried consultation between his captors.
"Is he there?
Whistle ?" Corporal gave a low whistle, which after a second or two was answered from the hill-side.
"That's all right!" said the other, in tones of relief.

"See anything of the cart ?" Corporal peered round in the darkness.
"Yes--all right down there." "Come on, then.