We stopped at last to wait for daylight, for the forest was so dense we believed we could travel by day with safety.  We lit our pipes in the usual way, to conserve our matches.  One match would light both, when we followed this order.  The lighted one was inverted over the unlighted one.  Into the lighted one Ted blew, while I drew in my breath from the unlighted one.  This morning, something went wrong.  Either the tobacco was soggy or I swallowed nicotine, for in a few minutes I had all the symptoms of poisoning, I wanted to lie down, but the ground was too wet.  So I leaned against a tree, and was very sorry for myself.  Ted felt much the same as I did.

Then we tried to light a fire—­we were so cold and wet, and, besides, we had a few potatoes, carried from a garden we passed the night before, which we thought we could roast.  Hunger and discomfort were making us bold.  Our matches would not light the damp wood, and we could find no other.  We chewed a few oats, and were very down-hearted.  It looked as if lack of food would defeat us this time!

We had so far come safely, but at great expense of energy and time.  We had avoided travelled roads, bridges, houses, taking the smallest possible risk, but with a great expense of energy.  Our journey had been hard, toilsome, and slow.  We were failing from lack of food.  Our clothes hung in folds on us, and we were beginning to feel weak.  The thought of swimming the Ems made us shudder!  One thing seemed clear—­we must get food, even if to get it imposed a risk.  There was no use in starving to death....  The recklessness of the slum-cat was coming to us.

The weather had no mercy that day, for a cold, gray, driving rain came down as we leaned against a tree, two battered hulks of men, with very little left to us now but the desire to be free.

* * *

If this were a book of fiction, it would be easy to lighten and vary the narrative here and there with tales of sudden attacks and hair’s-breadth escapes.  But it is not a fancy story—­it is a plain tale of two men’s struggle, with darkness, cold, and hunger, in a land of enemies.  It may sound monotonous to the reader at times, but I assure you, we never, for one minute, got accustomed to the pangs of hunger, the beat of the rain, or the ache of our tired legs, and the gripping, choking fear that through some mishap we might be captured.

The country was so full of bogs and marshes that we had to stick to the road that night, but we met no person, and had the good fortune to run into a herd of cows, and drank all the milk we could hold.  Unfortunately we had nothing in which to carry milk, so had to drink all we could, and go on, in the hope of meeting more cows.

While we were helping ourselves, the storm which had been threatening all night came on in great fury, and the lightning seemed to tear the sky apart.  We took refuge in an old cow-shed, which saved us from the worst of it.