vy sand then commenced; a
march which, fatiguing enough in itself, after the long period of close
confinement to which they had been subjected, was rendered trebly so by
the constraint of the heavy chain to which they were secured.
Staggering, reeling, and stumbling forward, conscious of nothing beyond
their dreadful state of misery and suffering, it took them over three
hours to perform that horrible journey, urged on though they were by the
incessant application of the cruel whip; and then they found themselves
outside an enclosure formed of heavy slabs of planking some nine feet in
height. A narrow door gave admittance to the place, and, this being
unlocked, the prisoners were driven in, and after the door had been
again securely fastened, they were released from the chain, and, still
with their hands secured behind them, allowed to stretch their exhausted
bodies upon the ground, and take such repose as was possible under the
circumstances.

The first definite idea to take possession of George Leicester's mind,
after he had fully realised the calamity of his capture, was escape.
Whilst chained immovable to a ring-bolt on his own vessel's deck, this
was clearly a simple impossibility; and as he now glanced round the
enclosure in which he found himself, he recognised the fact that it was
still equally so. It was true that the place was open to the sky, and
that the scaling of the barricade would be, to a strong, active, _free_
man, simply a pleasant gymnastic exercise; but he was _not_ free; his
hands were shackled behind him; a sentinel, armed with cutlass and gun,
was promptly placed on guard over the wretched group of captives; and
last, but not least, the three weeks of confinement, exposure, and
privation to which he had been subjected had left their mark upon him;
he could no longer call himself a strong and active man. Besides this,
there was Walford. George's vow to watch over and protect this man,
and, if possible, to restore him to Lucy's arms, was ever present to
him, and he recognised from the very first that, if ever he should be so
fortunate as to escape, Walford must certainly accompany him. When
Leicester contemplated the additional difficulties which this necessity
forced upon him, his courage _almost_--though not quite--failed him; for
since the capture of the _Aurora_ Walford had, under the influence of
the sufferings to which he, in common with the rest, had been subjected,
relapsed into a stat