Half the window was blocked by his shoulders--then he was worming out on his side. Andrew's last view of him was of a pair of shoe-soles that waggled absurdly for a moment and disappeared. He waited ten breaths. No sound. Sebastian must be safe in the ditch. He transferred the iron thing he was clutching to his left hand. It was cold in his hand. He gulped and started to follow Sebastian. He slid into the ditch head-first, and lay there on his belly, flat as a lizard. After his days of confinement the outside world seemed formidably large and open. He was glad for the walls of the ditch--even with their protection, he felt as lonely and conspicuous as a shelled oyster. He listened. All that he could hear was the distant bubble of water in an irrigation canal and the mutter of wind in the palms. Now the wind rattled a dry leaf somewhere, like a boy shaking a fan, and he started. Where was Sebastian? He stretched out his hand, by inches, and was enormously relieved when at last it touched a shod heel. "Sebas--" he started to whisper. "Ssh," a whisper answered "Sentry." The heel started to writhe away from him. He followed it, doing his best to make no noise. That had been the plan, to worm along the ditch till they were on the side of the prison farthest from the guard-room, opposite the smaller storehouse. Then they would have to take to the open. This crawling was a slow, ludicrous business, especially when you had to carry a bar of iron in one hand. For a moment he was reminded of a sack-race, and almost giggled aloud. How the devil did Sebastian get ahead so fast? He could get along faster if he dropped this silly bar. No, better not. They were around the corner now. He raised his head, gingerly, and caught a glimpse of the black bulk of the storehouse. Sebastian had stopped. A hand came back through the darkness and dug into his shoulder. Keep quiet, that meant. He lay frozen to the ground. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a grumbling voice spoke out of invisibility--a voice that seemed not a dozen feet away from his head. "Devil fly away with this musket--my arm's gone asleep again!" it said, in tones of cockney irritation. Something stamped on the ground. "Shut your mouth, you misbegotten son of a sweep," said another voice, low and irate, "Are you a soldier or a nursemaid?" "I'm a nursemaid," grumbled the first voice--Andrew knew it now--it belonged to one of the privates who had marched him to prison--the other voice was the sergeant's. "A bloody private nursemaid to a couple of stinkin' prisoners what's going to escape and what never escapes. Why in 'ell can't 'Is Majesty let 'em escape in daylight wen a man can see to shoot?" "You let them get through and you'll find out what, soon enough," said the other voice, grimly. "Orders are, take alive or dead. Remember that."