He twisted his shoulders, and crawled
forward until he reached the ledge on the other side, within the
enclosure. And though he stood hunched in a blackness complete as the
hole of Hell, still his spirit rejoiced as if it had fought and clawed
its way to Heaven.
He had beaten them. He was free.
With a surge of fierce courage such as he had not felt for many
months, he leapt down blind, trusting that the place had remained as
he remembered it. His feet landed easily in the soft, giving sand, as
his body fell forward in a weary ecstasy of surrender. He embraced its
sheltering softness like a lover, then found to his bewilderment that
he was crying. This was something he had not done since childhood. He
tried to check the tears but could not, as all the pain and fear of
the last three years, and of that terrible day, poured out of him.
He thought of the girl and he knew, even then, that though danger
still surrounded him, he must see her again as soon as it was safely
possible. For he had held her image before him like an icon and a
guiding light through the years of brutal captivity, placing his hope,
and all his heart, in the belief that she remained, alive and free.
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