Water in the ditches supplied us with drink, and the rain saw to it that we had plenty of water both without and within! When darkness returned we set off once again, often starting at our own shadows and slinking back into the blackness whenever we heard a sound. There was safety as well as weakness in numbers--safety in our lookout, and weakness in the inability of three men to give a reasonable explanation if we were tackled. Whenever we had to take to the road we carried our boots and trod as warily as panthers. Three or four times we had to pass through towns and villages, but our luck was in, and we were not challenged. Our heads were turned aside and as much distance imposed as possible whenever we heard anyone walking on the thoroughfares. Bootless and footsore, we also traversed four miles of railway, and it seems miraculous, looking back as I now do, that we were never seen or stopped by sentries. Three times, too, we had, willy-nilly, to cross rivers. We "did" our first river in boats which we found secured to the bank of the stream. There were two boats, and in the darkness we paddled them as silently as Red Indians to the other side, and then turned them adrift. I suppose it was what you might have called a theft, but stern necessity knows no law, and a German boat more or less was neither here nor there. Another river was spanned by a bridge, and you can imagine how we slipped across, as noiselessly as ghosts. Neither bridge nor boat offered itself as a solution of stream number three, but it did not prove a particularly formidable obstacle, and we walked through it, the water rising to our waists. From dusk to the time the first streak of light began to gild the eastern sky we "padded the hoof." On the fourth night we reckoned that we must be nearing the frontier. Tired and weary, footsore and very hungry, our vigilance was never relaxed. That last night we approached a town of considerable size. We did not dare to walk through it, and made a long detour in order to pass wide of the outskirts. Though we knew it not, we were nearing the last lap of our journey. It was dark, with a velvety blackness, and neither moon nor stars were showing. Suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by the challenge of a sentry. Evidently he had seen three silhouttes, or imagined he had. Were we to have had all our toil in vain? Were we to be shut out even as the gates of Paradise seemed to be opening to us? Without a sound we dropped prone upon the ground and waited, waited, listening to the beating of our hearts.