CHAPTER XXIII.

ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR.

Opportunity is an instinct to the man who dares. To him the law of the

impossible has no meaning. To him there is no such thing as the

unexpected. What he wants comes to pass, because he can not see danger,

difficulty, nor any of the obstacles that daunt the prudent and the

temporizing. It is, therefore, the impossible that is fulfilled in many

of the crises of life. By the same token it is the foolhardy and

preposterous thing that is most readily done in determinate

conjunctures. We guard against the possible, but we take little note of

the enterprises that involve foolhardiness or desperation. Daring has

safeguards of its own that are understood only when mad ventures have

come to successful issue. Helpless and hopeless as Jack's situation

seemed, the very poverty of his resources, helped the daring scheme of

escape that filled his mind night and day during these apparently

indolent weeks of pleasuring in the ranks of his enemies. Then, too, the

arrogant self-confidence of his captors was an inestimable aid. Military

discipline and provost vigilance were at their slackest stage in the

rebel lines at this triumphant epoch in the fortunes of the Confederacy.

The easily won combat at Bull Run had filled the authorities--as well as

the rank and file--with overweening contempt for the resources of the

North, or the enterprise of its soldiers. It was not until long after

the time I am now writing about, that the prisoners were closely guarded

and access refused to the idle and curious. But, as a matter of fact,

nothing in the fortunes of our friends equals the truth of the thrilling

and desperate chances taken by Northern captives to escape the lingering

death of prison in the South. Since the war, volumes have been written

of personal experience, amply attested, that would in romance receive

the derisive mark of the critics. Danger daily met becomes a commonplace

to men of resolution. Things which appall us when we read them become a

simple part of our purpose when we live in an atmosphere of peril and

put our hope only in ending the ordeal.

The incident I am narrating were the work of many hands. Mrs. Gannat had

from the first given her heart to the Union cause. A woman of high

standing in society, well known throughout the State for her mind, her

manners, and her benevolence, it was not difficult for her, by adroit

management, to aid such prisoners as fell into rebel hands during the

early years of the war. Before Richmond became a mart in the modern

sense, the Gannat mansion, set far back among the trees of a noble

grove, was a shrine to the tradition loving citizens, for, beyond any

Southern city, save perhaps New Orleans, Richmond folk cherished the

memory of aristocratic and semi-regal ancestors. There were those still

living when the war began, who had heard their fathers and mothers talk

of the last royal Governor and the splendid state of the great noblemen

who had flocked to the city of Powhatan when Virginia was the gem of

England's colonial coronet. The patrician caste of the city still held

its own, aided by the helot hand of slavery. Among the most reverently

considered in this sanctified group, Mrs. Gannat was, if not first, the

conceded equal. She was the dowager of the ancient noblesse. The young

Virginian received in her drawing-rooms carried away a distinction which

was recognized throughout the State. The dame admitted to Mrs. Gannat's

semi-literary _leveés_ was accepted as all that society demanded of

its votaries.

In other years this great lady had been the admired center of the court

circle in Washington. There she had known very intimately Senator--then

Congressman--Sprague. Jack remembered vaguely the gossip of an

engagement between his father and a famous Southern beauty; and when the

lady in the course of the conspiring said, as they talked, "My son, I

might have been your mother," he knew that this gentle-voiced,

kindly-eyed matron was the woman his father had loved and lost. I don't

propose to rehearse the ingenuities of the complicated plans whereby the

group we are interested in were to be delivered. Mrs. Gannat's perfect

knowledge of the city, her intimacy with the President, Cabinet, and

leading men, her vogue with the officials, all tended to make very

simple and easy that which would seem in the telling hare-brained and

impossible. Jack's unique position, and Dick's attitude of the

half-acknowledged _fiancé_ of an Atterbury, broke down bars that even

Mrs. Gannat's far-reaching sagacity might not have been able to cope

with in certainty. The night chosen for the escape was fatefully

propitious. The President was entertaining the newly arrived French

delegate and the ministers Mason and Slidell, just appointed to the

courts of St. James and the Tuileries. Everybody that was anybody was of

the splendid company.

Jack, however, was tortured by a doubt of Dick's constancy when it came

to an abrupt quitting of his sweetheart. Poor lad, he fought the battle

bravely, making no sign; and when Rosa, the picture of demure

loveliness, in her girlish finery, asked him maliciously as the carriage

drove toward the Executive Mansion--

"Don't you feel like a traitor, you sly Yankee?" Dick gave a great groan

and said:

"O Rosa, Rosa, I can't go! I do feel like a traitor. I am a traitor."

Jack, luckily, was sitting beside him, and brought his heel down on the

lad's toes with such emphasis that he uttered a cry of pain. Rosa was

all solicitude at this.

"What is it, Richard; have I wounded you? Don't mind my chatter; I only

do it to tease you. He shall be a Yankee; he shall make nutmegs; he

shall abuse the chivalrous South; he shall be what he likes; he sha'n't

be teased--" and she wound her bare arms about his neck, quite

indifferent to the reproving nudges of mamma and the sad mirthfulness

of Jack.

Dick found means in the noise of the chariot, and the crush they

presently came into, for saying something that seemed to lessen the

self-reproachful tone of the penitent, and, when they entered the modest

portals of the presidency, Rosa was radiant and Dick equable, but not in

his usual chattering volubility.

"You are sure you do not repent? You can stay if you choose," Jack said,

as they entered the dressing-room.

"Where you go, I go; what you say is right I know is right, and I will

do it." Dick looked away confusedly as he said this. They were

surrounded by young officers, all of whom the two young men knew.

"Ah, ha, Mr. Perley! I have stolen a march on you; I have secured the

first waltz from Miss Rosa," a young man at the mirror cried, as Dick

adjusted his gloves.

"Then, Captain Warrick, I'm likely to be a wall-flower, for the second,

third, and fourth were promised yesterday."

"Fortunes of war, my dear fellow--fortunes of war. You must lay siege to

another fortress."

"Dick," Jack whispered, "it's an omen. It will give us time to slip out

and change our garments without the danger of excuses, for, though

nothing is suspected, any incautious phrase may destroy us."

"Don't fear for me. I shall be prudent as a confessor. We can't go,

however, just yet. I must have a little talk with Rosa. I may never see

her again. If you were in love and going from the light of her eye,

perhaps never to see her again, you wouldn't be so cool. We must,

anyway, take the ladies to the host and hostess for presentation; then a

few words and I am ready." Dick was trembling visibly and blushing like

a school-girl at first facing a class-day crowd. Jack's heart went out

to the lad, and he thought the chances about even that when the moment

of trial came the boy's resolution would give way. The ladies were

waiting for them when they emerged into the corridors--Rosa began,

prettily, to rally Dick on his tardiness. It took time to thread the

constantly increasing crowd in the hallways, the corridors, and on the

stairs, but they finally reached the group in which Mrs. Davis was

receiving the confused salutations of the throng at the drawing-room

door. As soon as this formality was ended, Rosa whisked Dick in one

direction while Mrs. Atterbury asked Jack to take her to the library.

Here, by a happy chance, she came upon a group of dowagers--friends of

her youth from other towns--brought to the capital by the event, or

their husbands' official duties in the new government. Jack bowed low as

he relinquished the good lady's arm, feeling as if he were embarking on

some odious treason, in view of her persistent and generous treatment of

him and his.

"Now that you are among the friends of your youth, I will leave you; who

knows whether I shall see you again?" he faltered, as she turned an

affectionate glance upon him.

"Oh, you needn't think that you can take _congé_ for good, Jack. I may

want to dance during the night. If I do I shall certainly lay my

commands upon you. You may devote yourself to the young people now, but

I warn you I am not to be thrown over so easily. Besides, I want to

present you to a dozen friends that you have not yet met at my house."

"You will always know where to find me; but I am not so sure that I

shall be as able, as I am willing, to come to you," Jack said, trembling

at the double meaning of his words.

"Oh, I know you're dying to get to the dancers."

"I can go to no one that it will give me more happiness to please than

you. Indeed, I'm going into danger when I quit you. Give me your

blessing, as if it were Vincent going to the wars."

She had turned from the throng of ladies, who were discussing a

political secret, and her eyes melted tenderly as Vincent's name passed

Jack's lips. She touched his bowed head gently, saying:

"Why, how serious you are! One would think beauty a battery, and you on

the way to charge."

"You are right. It is a murderous ambush."

"Well, if you regard it so seriously--God bless you in it."

Her gentle eyes rested tenderly on him; he seized the kind hand, and,

raising it to his lips in the gallant Southern fashion, turned and

hurried away among the guests.

"Ah, Mrs. Atterbury, conquests at your age, from hand to lip, there's

but short interval," and the President held up a warning finger as he

came closer to the lady.

"Oh, no, age makes a long route between hand and lip--thirty years ago

you kissed my hand, and you never reached the lip."

"It wasn't my fault that I didn't."

"Nor your misfortune either," and Mrs. Atterbury glanced archly at her

rival, Mrs. Davis, the mature beauty of the scene.

Dick, meanwhile, not so dexterous in expedients or ready in speech as

his mentor, became wedged in an eddy, just outside the main stream,

pouring drawing-room ward, so that, returning to the spot where they had

separated, Jack did not, for the moment, discover him.

Rosa's gayety and delight deepened the depression that made Dick so

unlike himself. At first, in the exuberance of the scene, the girl did

not heed this. She knew everybody, and, though in daily contact with

most of them, there were no end of whispered confidences to exchange and

tender reassurances in ratification of some new compact. Then there were

solemn notes of comparison as to the fit and form of gowns, or the fit

of a furbelow, exhaustively discussed, perhaps that very afternoon. Keen

eyes, merry and tantalizing, were lifted to Dick's sulky face during

this pretty by-play, but all the gayety of the comedy was lost to him.

When he could contain himself no longer, with another bevy of cronies in

sight coming down the stairs, he cried out, desperately:

"For Heaven's sake, Rosa, don't wait here like the statue in St.

Peter's, to be kissed by everybody on the way to the pope; it's simply

sickening to stand here like a shrine to be slopped by girls that you

see every day. Come away; I want to say something to you."

Rosa turned her astonished eyes upon the railer, and, with a comic

movement of immense dignity, drew her arm from his sheltering elbow,

and, in tones of freezing _hauteur_ retorted:

"And since when, sir, are you master of my conduct? I am my own

mistress, I believe. I shall kiss whom I please."

"O Rosa, Rosa, I didn't mean that; I don't know what I meant. I--O Rosa,

don't be fretful with me now! I can't bear it. I am ill--I mean I am

tired. Come and sit with me."

Several on the outer edge of the flowing current turned curiously as

this sharp cry of boyish pleading rose above the noisy clamor. It was

impossible, however, to push backward, but in an instant the lovers were

sheltered in an alcove near the doorway. Rosa had taken his rejected arm

again in a panic of guilty repentance, and, looking at his half-suffused

eyes, cried, piteously:

"Oh, forgive me, Richard, forgive me--I did not mean it! I forgot you

were ill. Ah, please, please forgive me! You know--I--I--"

But Dick, now conscious that inquiring eyes were fastened upon them,

curious ears listening, seized her arm, and, by main force, reached the

hall doorway, now nearly deserted.

"Rosa, I am not well--that is, I have a headache, or heartache--it's the

same thing. I didn't mean to tell you, for I didn't want to destroy your

pleasure, and you have looked forward so long to this; but I--I--can not

dance. Jack and I are going to walk a little while, and then we--we

shall be more ourselves."

Poor Dick had only the slightest idea what he was saying, and Rosa

listened with wide-open eyes and little appealing caresses, not quite

certain what the distracted lover did mean.

"All your dances are taken up. Young Warrick just told me he had the

first. You gave Gayo Brotherton two yesterday, so you will have no need

of me for hours yet."

"But I will cut them if you say so. Only you know that it is our way

here to give the first who ask."

"Yes, yes; that's right. I--I couldn't dance now. I shall be all right,

presently if--if I see you happy. Ah, Rosa, if--if I should die--if I

should be carried away, would you always love me, would you always

believe in me?"

"Why, Dick, you are really ill; let me feel your wrist." Rosa seized

Dick's hand and began a convulsive squeezing. "Yes, you certainly have a

fever. You must go home. I shall go with you. It is your wound. It has

broken out again--I know it has. You shall go home this instant. I will

send for the carriage. Come straight up-stairs, you wicked boy! To let

me come here when you are so ill! I shall never forgive myself--never!"

"A large vow for a small maid."

"Mr. Jack!"--for the voice was Jack's--"Dick is very ill, and he must go

home at once. Will you not get the carriage and take us?"

"I will not take you. I am very experienced in Dick's ailments, and I

have already summoned a physician, who is waiting for us. But he can not

attend his patient if you are present."

"Yes, Rosa, Jack is right. I will leave you now, and when you see me

again you will see that I am not ill--that I--I--"

"I will stop for you at the door, Dick. You know the physician can not

be kept waiting, so make your parting brief. Short shrift is the easiest

in love and war."

"A doctor is as dreadful to me as a battle, Rosa. Kiss me as if I were

going to the field," Dick whispered as Jack's back was turned. A minute

later he had joined his mentor, and the two hurried through the square

and down toward the river.

"I can't do it, Jack," Dick suddenly broke out, as they hurried through

the dark street. "I must leave Rosa a line telling her my motive. What

will she think of me sneaking away like this without a word? Now, you go

on to Blake's cabin and change your clothes. I will get an old suit of

Vint's. It will really make no difference in the time, and it will be

safer for us to reach the prison separately than together."

"No, Dick, be a man. Every line you write will add to our peril. She

will, of course, show it to her mother. Our night will be known in the

morning. Mrs. Atterbury is too loyal to the Confederacy to conceal

anything. You will thus give the authorities the very clew they need.

No, Dick, you must be guided by me in this; besides, you can send Rosa

letters through Vincent at headquarters as soon as we reach Washington."

"I can't help it. I know you are right, but I must do it. I will be with

you in less than an hour. I'm off."

"Listen!--Good God, he's gone!" Jack ejaculated as Dick, taking

advantage of a cross-street, shot off into the darkness. Jack halted. To

call would be dangerous; to run after him excite comment, perhaps

pursuit and discovery. There was nothing to be done but wait at the

rendezvous. He would come back--Jack tried to make himself believe that

he could depend on that. When, after a circuitous walk of half an hour,

he reached the cabin of Blake, the colored agent of Mrs. Gannat, he

found a note from his patroness warning him that the prison authorities

had become alert. A rumor of a plot to escape had penetrated the War

Department, and orders had been given to increase the precaution of the

guards. The reception at the President's was a stroke of good fortune

for the prisoners, as all the higher officials would be detained there

until morning. Perhaps, in view of the chance, it would be better to

anticipate the hour of flight, as, unfortunately, the horses that had

been got together for the fugitives were in use for the Davis guests,

and on such short notice others could not be provided without exciting

suspicion or pointing to the agency by which the liberation had been

brought about.

"Ah, if Dick were only here," Jack groaned, "we could go to the square

and lead away enough staff or orderly horses to serve the purpose. The

little wretch! It would serve him properly to leave him here mooning

over his sweetheart." Then his heart took up a little tremor of protest.

He sighed gently. He, too, had loitered when his heart pleaded. Why

should Dick be firmer than he? It was after midnight when he reached the

sheltering, broken, ground along the river. The provost prison fronted

the water. It had been a tobacco warehouse, built long before, and

hastily transformed into its present military purpose. It was set in

what was called a "cut" in the heavy clay bank, thus bringing the lower

windows below the level of the surrounding land. There were sentries

stationed in front and rear, who walked at regular intervals from corner

to corner. The sentinel on the high level to the rear could not see the

ground along the wall, and it was this fact which Jack calculated upon

to enable him to help the prisoners to remove the _débris_ of the wall

through which they were to presently emerge. The night was pitchy dark.

This had been taken into consideration long before. Heavy clouds hung

over the river, throwing the prison and its environs into still more

security for Jack's purpose. He reconnoitred every available point,

searched every corner of possible danger, and as the time passed he

began to rage with impatience against Dick, whose delay was now periling

the success of the enterprise.

It was twelve o'clock and after. He dared wait no longer. Dick must

shift for himself. Perhaps he had lost his way. In any event it was

safer to set the general prisoners free, as they were only carelessly

guarded. Lamps glimmered fitfully in the guard-room, throwing fantastic

banners of light almost to the water's edge. He made a final tour about

the broken ground, but there was no sound or suspicion of Dick. He knew

every inch of the ground. Dick and he had surveyed and resurveyed it for

days. The coast was clear. No one was on guard at the vital point, but

still he lingered, his breath coming and going painfully, as a break in

the clouds cast a moving shape over the undulating ground. Should he

give the boy another half-hour's grace? He makes a circuit in the

direction Dick must approach by and waits. He will count a hundred very

slowly, then wait no longer. He counts up to fifty, hears a coming step,

and waits alertly. No--it passes on. He begins again--counts one

hundred, two hundred. No sign. "Pah! it is madness to delay for him. The

young poltroon has lost his resolution in his lovesick fever. Very

likely he has been unable to run the risk of Rosa's anger--her mother's

indignation--the possibility of never seeing the girl again." Well, he

had given him ample grace. He had endangered his own and other lives to

humor a boyish whim. Now he must act, and swiftly.

The plan was too far gone in execution to be changed. He must carry out

the final measures alone. Now, one of these details required some one to

slip down on the ground and crawl to the point between the windows where

the prisoners were working and aid them to remove the thin, shell of

brick. If it fell outward, the guard at the corner would hear the noise,

and might come down to see what it was that made it. The removal of this

wall released all confined in the main prison. These he saw stealing out

in groups of ten or more. They had guides waiting on the bank of the

river. Jack gave them final orders. The most difficult work was the

getting out Jones and Barney, for they had special cells. Jack was to

guard Jones's exit and Dick Barney's, but now all the work would devolve

upon him. It was two o'clock, and he dared wait no longer. Raising

himself from the low wall where he had been crouching, he started toward

the corner of the prison farthest from the guard-room. At the wall of

the building he dropped flat on his face and began to crawl forward,

sheltered by the low ground that formed a sort of dry ditch about the

basement of the prison. He had barely stretched himself at full length

when a bright light was flashed on him from a deep doorway just beyond

him, and a voice, mocking and triumphant, exclaimed.

"This is a bad place to swim, my friend! There ain't enough water to

drown you, but if you stir you'll run against a bullet."

Jack lay quite still and raised his eyes. Above him stood a trooper,

with a revolver leveled at and within ten feet of him. Figure to

yourself any predicament in life in which vital stakes hang on the

issue; figure to yourself the shipwrecked seizing ice where he had hoped

for timber; the condemned criminal walking into the jailer's toils where

he had laboriously dug through solid walls; the captain of an army

leaving the field victor, to find his legions rushing upon him in rout;

figure any monstrous overturn in well-laid schemes, and you have but a

faint reflex of poor Jack's heart-breaking anguish when this jocular

fate stood above him, with the five gaping barrels pointed at his

miserable head. Oh, if Dick had only been there! His quick eye and keen

activity would have discovered this lurking devil; perhaps, between

them, they would have averted the disaster. Where could Dick be?

BOOK III

_THE DESERTERS_.

CHAPTER XXIV.

BETWEEN THE LINES.

On quitting Jack, Dick had but one thought in mind--to make his

departure less abrupt for Rosa. If he left her without a word, what

would she think? Then, with an officer's uniform, he could be of much

more help to Jack and the party than in the rough civilian homespun

furnished at the cabin. Besides, he knew of certain blank headquarter

passes lying on Vincent's desk. He would get a few of these; they might

extricate the party in the event of a surprise.

He tore over the solemn roadway, under the spectral foliage, and in

twenty minutes he was in his room in the Atterburys'. Vincent's old

uniform he had often noticed in a spare closet adjoining his own

sleeping-room. In an instant he was in it, and, though it was not a fit,

he soon put it in order to pass casual inspection. The line for Rosa was

the next delay. What should he say? He had had his mind full for days of

the most tender sentiments and prettily turned phrases, but the turmoil

of the last hour, the vital value of every moment to Jack's plans, left

him no time to compose the poem he had meditated so long. Rosa's own

pretty desk was open, and on a sheet of her own paper he wrote, in a

scrawling, school-boy hand:

"DARLING ROSA: You've often said that you would disown Vincent if he

were not true to the South. Think of Vincent in my place--dawdling in

Acredale or Washington while battles were going on. You would not hold

him less contemptible that he was in love; that he let his love, or his

life, for you are both to me, stand as a barrier to his duty. You can't

love where you can't honor, and you can't hate where you know conscience

rules. I go to my duty, that in the end I may come to you without shame.

I ask no pledge other than comes to your heart when you read this; but

whatever you may say, whatever you may decide, I am now and always shall

be your devoted

"RICHARD"

He sighed, casting a woe-begone glance into the mirror, dimly conscious

that he was a very heroic young person. He kissed various objects dear

to the little maid, and then, in lugubrious unrest, sallied out

and mounted.

Again under the calm sky--again the fleet limbs of the horse almost

keeping time to his own inward impatience. He holds to the soft,

unpaved, outlying streets, that his pace may not attract remark. He

passes horsemen, like himself spurring fleetly in the darkness. He is

near the river at last--dismounts and reconnoitres. He easily finds a

place to tie the horse, and, familiar with every inch of the outlying

ground about the prison, crawls close to the wall, listening intently.

He can hear no sound save the weary clank of the sentry on the wooden

walk. He reaches the wall where the prisoners Jones and Barney were to

emerge. There is no sign of a break! Where can Jack be? Some disaster

must have overtaken him, for it is past the hour set and soon it will be

dawn, and then all action will be impossible. Perhaps Jack has been

caught reconnoitring? Perhaps he has gone with the main body, not

venturing to try for Jones and Dick without help? No, that was not like

Jack. This was his special part in the plan--if it were not done, Jack

was still about. He can find out readily--thanks to the countersign. He

steals back over the low hillock, mounts the horse, and by a _détour_

reaches the sentry guarding the river front of the prison. He is

challenged, but, possessed of the countersign, finds no difficulty in

riding up to the guard-room doorway.

"Has Lieutenant Hawkins been here within an hour, sentry?" he asks, in

apparent haste.

"No, sir. I think he has been sent for--leastwise, the sergeant went

away about an hour ago to report the taking of a deserter, found

prowling about the side of the prison."

"A deserter?"

"Yes, sir. He had a brand-new uniform on and no company mark, nor no

equipments."

"What has been done with him?" Dick asked, breathlessly, dismounting. "I

wonder if he isn't one of my company from Fort Lee? He went off on a

drunk yesterday, though he was sent here on a commissary errand."

"I dunno, sir. He's in the lockup there. He was very violent, and the

sergeant bound him with straps."

"I will go in and examine him; he may be one of my men, and, as our

brigade moves in the morning, I should like to know."

"Very well, sir; the officer of the day is asleep in the room beyond the

first door. One of the men will call him."

"Oh, no need to disturb him until I have seen the prisoner.--Here, my

man"--addressing a soldier asleep on a settee--"show me to the deserter

brought in to-night."

"Yes, sir," the man cried, starting up with confused alacrity; then,

noticing the insignia of major on Dick's gray collar, he saluted

respectfully, and, pointing to a double doorway, waited for his superior

to lead the way. Dick, who had been in the prison before, knew his

whereabouts very well, and it was not until the soldier reached the room

in which the deserter was detained that he seemed to remember that there

were no lights.

"Here are the man's quarters, sir; but I'm out of matches. If you'll

wait a minute I'll bring a candle."

"All right," Dick responded, in a loud voice; "I'll stand here until you

come back."

The quest of the candle would take the guide to the closet in the

guard-room, and, risking little to learn much, Dick struck a match and

peered into the stuffy little room, more like a corn-crib than a

prison-cell.

"Hist, Jack! is it you?" he called.

There was an exclamation from the farther end of the room, and then a

fervent--

"Heavens, Dick! is it really you?"

"Sh--sh--!"

The soldier's returning footfalls sounded in the passage-way; but, as he

re-entered the hall where Dick stood shading the flickering light, he

could not see the hastily extinguished match in Dick's hand. As the man

came slowly along the winding passage-way, Dick whispered:

"You are a recruit in Rickett's legion; you were drunk and lost your

way, and I am your major; you are stationed at Fort Lee near

Mechanicsville, and you belong to Company G."

Jack pretended to be sound asleep when the soldier and Dick entered. He

rubbed his eyes sleepily, and looked up in a vacant, tipsy way, leering

knowingly at the soldier, who had caught him by the shoulder.

"What are you doing here, Tarpey? Why aren't you with your company?

You'll get ball and chain for this lark, or my name's not James Braine."

"But, major, it--it wasn't my fault. My cousin, Joe Tarpey, came down

from Staunton with a barrel of so'gum whisky, and--and--"

"You drank too much and was caught where you had no business to be.

However," Dick added, sternly, "the regiment marches in the morning--you

must get out of here. Soldier, show me to Captain Payne's quarters. Say

to him that Major Braine, of Rickett's Legion, desires to speak with him

a moment." But he had no sooner said this than he realized the danger he

was running.

The captain might know Braine, and then how could he extricate himself

from the dilemma? Luckily the captain was not in his quarters, and Dick,

with calm effrontery, sat down and wrote out a statement of the case,

where he was to be found, and his reasons for carrying the

prisoner away.

The sergeant, having read this, made no objection to releasing the

alleged deserter, since there had been no orders concerning him, and,

without more ado, Jack walked away with his captain, the picture of

abashed valor and repentant tipsiness.

"Now, Dick, there's no time to ask the meaning of your miraculous

doings. We've still time to let our friends out and get away before

daylight; but we mustn't lose a second. Sh! stand still, what's that?

Troopers! Good heavens, they can't have found out your trick so soon!

Ah, no! They are floundering about looking for quarters," he added, in

immeasurable relief, as the voices of the riders sounded through the

darkness, cursing luck, the road, and everything else. "O Dick, if we

only had the countersign I could play a brilliant trick on these

greenhorns! Perhaps I can as it is."

"I have the countersign. How do you suppose I could have managed to get

to you if I hadn't? It is 'Lafayette.'"

"Glory! Now make all the clatter you can after I challenge."

They had by this time reached a row of tumble-down stables directly in

the rear of the prison, and shut out from the open ground by a decrepit

fence, broken here and there by negroes too lazy to pass out into the

street to reach the river. The horsemen had turned into this lane-like

highway--evidently misdirected. When within a few feet, Jack gave a

sudden whack on the board and cried, sternly:

"Halt! Who comes there?"

There was a sudden clash of steel as the group halted in a heap, and

then a weary voice replied:

"We have no countersign. We should have been at our destination long

before sundown, but were misdirected ten miles out of our course on the

Manchester pike."

"Very well. Dismount and come forward one man at a time," Jack answered,

briefly. This the spokesman did with some alacrity. As he came up, Dick

took the precaution of getting between him and his three companions, and

then Jack said: "I suppose you are all right; but my orders are to

arrest all mounted men, detain their horses here in these, the provost

stables," and Jack pointed to Dick's horse dimly outlined against the

sky. "I will give you a receipt for him, and you can get him back in the

morning when you state your case to the provost marshal.--Stephen," he

turned to Dick, "take that horse and put him with the others." He then

made out a receipt, handed it to the astonished trooper, and, directing

him where to go, carried out the same short shrift with the other three.

The troopers were glad enough to be relieved of their beasts. This they

did not attempt to deny, for they had seen a public-house in the street

below, where they could procure much-needed refreshment, relieved as

they now were from the necessity of reporting to their commander, whose

whereabouts were far down the Rocett road.

"By George, Jack, what a, crafty plotter you are! Now we have a mount

for the party, and I needn't take poor Warick's crack stallion."

"Yes; we've doubled the chances of escape by this little stratagem; but

we have lost time. Come. Have you tied the horses?"

"Yes. Lead on."

Over the turfy hillside, now moist and sticky with the heavy dew, they

stole, half crouching, half crawling, until they were on a level with

the prison basement. The sentry in front was no longer pacing his beat,

and there was no sign of the man in the rear. In a few minutes the two

crawling figures were at the preconcerted places in the wall. In

response to their light taps, a square of brick-work large enough to

leave a space for a man to crawl through crumbled upon Jack and Dick,

who held their bodies closely pressed against the _débris_ to prevent

too loud a noise. There was no time to wait probabilities of discovery,

and an instant later Barney and Jones emerged, panting and half

smothered.

"I thought it was all up with me hopes, as Glory McNab said when her

sweetheart ran away with the cobbler's daughter." Barney whispered,

hugging Jack rapturously.

"Sh--! Down on your stomachs. Move that way until you see me rise.

Come." And Jack squirmed ahead as if he had been accustomed to the

locomotion of snakes all his life. In ten minutes they were in the

improvised stables. Dick had taken the precaution to place the horses

where they could feed on a heap of fodder stacked in the yard, and when

they mounted the beasts appeared refreshed as well as rested. Dick

loosing Warick's horse so that he might make his way back to his master,

the fugitives rode cautiously out of the lane, into the open fields,

and, though it was not their shortest way, pushed along the river road

to mislead pursuit. Jack's stratagem had resulted in better luck even

than the possession of the horses. It not only secured a mount for the

four, but, what was equally and perhaps, in view of unforeseen

contingencies, more important disguises for the two prisoners.

They found an extra coat strapped to each saddle, and with these Barney

and Jones were easily transformed into something like Confederate

soldiers. Both Jack and Jones knew every inch of the suburbs, having

made the topography a study. They struck for the less traveled

thoroughfares until they reached the northeastern limits, then following

the old Cold Harbor road they pushed decisively toward the Williamsburg

pike. But, instead of following it, they traversed on by lanes and

bridle-paths during the day. This was to divide pursuit, as the larger

party had taken the river route where Butler's troops were waiting in

boats for them. The saddle-bags proved a windfall, for in them were

orders to proceed to Yorktown and report to General Magruder. With these

Jack felt no difficulty in passing several awkward points, where there

was no escaping the cavalry patrols, owing to miles of swamp and

impenetrable forest.

They kept clear, however, of such places as the telegraph reached,

though at one point they found a post in a great state of excitement

over news brought from a neighboring wire, announcing the escape of two

prisoners who had been traced to the York road. But with such papers as

Jack presented and the number of the party double that described in the

dispatch, the adventurers easily evaded suspicion. The great danger,

however, was in quitting the Confederate lines to pass into Butler's.

They chose the night for this, as the camp-fires would warn them of the

vicinity of outposts, Union or rebel. They had purposely avoided

highways and habitations, and, as a result, were limited in food to such

corn-cribs as they found far from human abodes, or the autumn aftermath

of vegetables sometimes found in the shadow of the woods. All were good

shots, however, and a fat rabbit and partridge were cooked by Dick with

such address, that the party were eager to take more time in halting

since they need not starve, no matter how long the journey lasted.

Jack, by tacit consent, was considered commander of the squad, Barney

remarking humorously that they would not ask to see his commission until

they were in a country where a title meant authority. The commander

ordered his small army very judiciously. They were to ride as far apart

as the roads or woods or natural obstructions would admit. They thus

moved forward in the shape of a triangle, the apex to the rear.

Exchanges of position were made every six hours. They were at the end of

the second day, toward sunset, approaching what they supposed was

Warrick Creek, nearly half-way to Fort Monroe, when they suddenly

emerged on an open plateau from which they could see a mile or two

before them a tranquil waste of crimson water.

"Why, this can't be the creek!" exclaimed Jones, excitedly. "The creek

isn't half a mile at its broadest."

"What can it be?" Jack asked, who had been the right wing to Jones's

left. "It's certainly not the James, for the sun is setting at

our back!"

"Blest if I can tell. It looks very much like the Chesapeake, only the

Chesapeake is wider."

By this time Barney and Dick had ridden up, and began to admire the

expanse of water spreading from the land before them to a green

wilderness in the distance.

"I'm afraid we are in a fix," Jones said, resignedly. "If I'm not very

much mistaken, the red line yonder, that looks like a roadway, is a

breastwork, and behind that what looks like a plowed field is

earthworks. My boys, we are before Yorktown and farther from our lines

than we were yesterday. The nigger that showed us the way in the woods

was either ignorant or deceiving us. We are now inside the outposts of

the rebels, and we shall have to crawl on our hands and knees to

escape them."

"I don't see what better off we'll be on our hands and knees than we are

in our saddles," Barney cried, guilelessly. "Sure we can go faster on

the bastes than we can on our hands, and, as for me knees, 'tis only in

prayer that I ever use them."

"Not in love, Barney?" Dick asked, innocently.

"No, me darlin'. The gurls I love think more of me arms than me knees,

and I do all of me pleadin' with me lips."

"I should think they could hold their own," Jones remarked, dryly.

"Indeed, they can that, and a good deal more, as me best gurl'll tell

you if she'll tell the truth, and no fear of her doing that, I'll

go bail."

"Fie! Barney, if she won't tell the truth you should have none of her,"

Dick cried in stage tones.

"Indeed, it's little I have of her, for she's that set on Teddy Redmund

that she leaves me to her mother, when Teddy comes to the porch of

an evening."

"Well, friends, your loves are, no doubt, adorable, and it is a pleasant

thing to talk over, but just now what we want is a way out of this

trap"; and Jack, saying this, slipped from his horse and led him into

the shelter of a thick growth of scrub-pines. The rest followed his

example. They tied their animals and held a council of war. It was

resolved that Jack and Jones should make a reconnaissance to find out

the route toward the Warrick; that Dick and Barney should secrete and

guard the horses and do what they could to obtain some food. This

decision was barely agreed upon, when the shrill call of a bugle sounded

almost among the refugees, and they sprang to their horses, waiting in

silence the next demonstration. Other bugles sounded farther away; a

great cloud of dust arose in the direction of the water, and then Jack

whispered:

"Remain here. I will climb one of these trees and see what it means."

He was in the leafy boughs of a spreading pine in a few minutes, and

could descry a broad plain, with tents scattered here and there; still

farther on the broad uplands frame buildings with a red and white flag

floating to the wind could be seen. Back of all this he could make out a

broad expanse of water and a few ungainly craft, lazily moving to the

current in the Yorktown roadstead.

"Yes. this certainly must be Yorktown. Why have they such a force here?

No one is threatening it," Jack murmured, his eyes arrested by a long

line of cavalry in undress, leading their horses up a circuitous and

hitherto concealed road to the plateau. "Ha! they go down there for

water. Let me see. That is to the southeastward; that is our point of

direction. I think we may venture to push on now." He hastily descended

from his survey, and making known what he had seen, added: "We must

proceed with the greatest caution. There is no time to think of food

until we get away from this dangerous neighborhood. We must keep well

spread out, and move only over turfy ground or in the deep shade of the

wood. In case of disaster, the cry of the night owl, as agreed upon,

will be a warning."

The four had practiced the melancholy cry of the owl, as heard in the

Southern woods both day and night, and they could all imitate it

sufficiently well to pass muster if the hearer were not on guard against

the trick, and yet so clever an imitation that none of the four could

mistake it. So soon as they quit the plateau, seeking a way east by

south, they plunged immediately into a dreary swamp, where progress was

slow and difficult. The mosquitoes beset them in swarms, plaguing even

the poor animals with their lusty sting. Hour after hour, until the

woods became a hideous chaos of darkness and unseemly sounds, the four

panting fugitives pushed on, fainting with hunger, worn out by the

incessant battle with the corded foliage, the dense marshes, and

quagmires through which their path to safety lay. But at midnight Jones

gasped and gave up the fight.

"Go on; leave me here. I am of no use at best. I should only be a drag

on you. Perhaps you may find some darkey and send him back to give me a

mouthful to eat. That would pick me up; nothing else can."

The four gathered together for counsel. The horses, faring better than

their masters, for they found abundance to allay hunger in the lush,

dank grass of the morass, were corralled in a clump of white ash, and

the jaded men, groping about, clambered upon the gnarled roots of the

trees to catch breath. They had been battling steadily for five hours

against all the forces of Nature. Their clothes were torn, their flesh

abraded, their strength exhausted. They could have slept, but the ground

offered no place, for wherever the foot rested an instant the weight of

the body pushed it down into the oozy soil until water gushed in over

the shoe-tops. Jones had found the struggle hardest because he had not

the youth of the others nor their light frames. The striplings were

spared many of his hardships and were still able to endure the ordeal,

if the end were sure relief. Jack struck a match, and with this lighted

a pine knot. He surveyed the gloomy brake carefully, and at last,

finding a mound where a thick growth of underbrush gave assurance of

less treacherous soil, he called to Barney to aid him. The little

hillock was made into a couch by means of the saddles, and the groaning

veteran carefully laid upon the by no means uncomfortable refuge. As

Jack held the light above him, Jones's eyes closed and he sank into a

lethargic sleep.

"He will be in a high fever when he awakes," Jack said, looking at

Barney. "We must see that he has food, or the fever will be his death.

Here is what I propose: you and I shall sally out from here, blazing the

path as we go. We must find some sign of life within a circuit of five

miles. That will take us say till daylight to go and come. We will leave

Dick here to guard Jones, and if we do not return by noon to-morrow Dick

will know that he must shift for himself."

"You command, Jack dear. What you say I'll do, as Molly Meginniss said

to the priest when he told her to repent of her sins."

"Dick, my boy, do you think you are equal to a vigil? You must stay here

with Jones. If he wakes and wants water, press the moisture of these

leaves to his lips, it's sassafras; and, stay--here is a sort of

plantain, filled with little globules of dew; pour these into his mouth,

and at a pinch give him a handful from the pool. In case of great danger

fire two shots, but if any one should come toward you or discover you it

will be better to surrender. In that event, you can make up a story to

suit the case, which may enable you to finally escape. This man's life

is in your hands. Remember that it is as glorious a deed as fighting in

line. Keep up a stout heart. We will soon be back, or you may take it

for granted all is up with us."

"Ah! Jack! Jack! To start so well and end so miserably, I can't bear

it--I can't stay here. You stay and let me go."

"No, Dick, it can't be; you are already so worn out that we should have

been obliged to halt for you if Jones hadn't broken down. It can't be

that you would think of leaving a fellow-soldier in such extremity as

this, Dick? I know you better."

"But I don't know him. I have no interest in him. With you I'll face any

danger--I'll die without a word; but to stay here in this awful place,

with the black pools of water, like great dead eyes, glaring in their

hideous light" (the pine-torch flaring in the wind filled the glade with

vast ogreish shadows, as the clustering bushes were swayed in the night

air) "and these hideous night-cries--O Jack, I can't--I can't--I

must go!"

"But the horses and the need of some one that can come back in case

anything befalls me. I am disappointed in you, Dick. I am shocked; you

are not the man of courage and honor I thought you."

"O my God, go--go--I will stay; but, Jack, if you find me dead,

tell--tell--Rosa--that--that--" He gasped and sank down sobbing against

the gnarled tree that crossed the mound above Jones's head.

"I will tell Rosa that you were the man she believed you were when the

trial came," and with this Jack and Barney, with a flaming torch, set

forward hastily through the fantastic curtain of foliage and night,

which shut in the glimmering vista of specters, dark, sinister,

and menacing.

CHAPTER XXV

PHANTASMAGORIA.

To say that night is a time of terror is a commonplace. Night is not

terrible of itself. It is like the ocean--peace and repose if there be

no storm. But of all terrors there are none, outside a guilty mind, so

benumbing as night in the unknown. It does not lessen the horror of

darkness that fear makes use of the imagination for its agencies. Fancy,

intuition, and the train that follows the inner vision, these make of

night a phantasmagoria, compared to which Milton's inferno is a place of

comparative repose.

If you would realize the wondrous necromancy of the sun, pass a night in

some primeval forest, untouched by the hand of man. Until he stands in

the awful silence of the midnight wood, or upon some vast waste of

nature, no man can figure to himself the varied shapes the mind can give

to terrors based upon the mysterious noises of nature, and the goblin

motions of inanimate things. The lover thinking of his lass welcomes the

night and the rapturous walks among well-known scenes and kindly

objects. With glimmering lamps in the foliage and the not distant sounds

of daily life, even the woods have nothing fearful to the meditative or

the distraught. But in flight, with fear as a garment that can not be

laid aside, the somber forms of the forest are more terrible than an

army with banners, as a haunted house is a more unnerving dread than

burglars or any form of night marauders. It was at night that the

mutinous sailors of Columbus broke into decisive revolt; it was at night

that the iron band of Cortes lost heart, and were routed on the lakes of

Mexico; it was at night that the resolution of Brutus failed before the

disaster at Philippi.

That two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, which is the secret of

soldierly success, comes only from companionship. The night-wood is a

world by itself, filled with its own atmosphere, as oppressive to valor

as the electric reefs that drew the nails from the ships of Sindbad.

Among familiar scenes and well-known shapes, it is all the delight the

poets sing--so tranquillizing, inspiring, fecund, that in comparison the

thought of day brings up garish hues, flaunting figures--the hardness,

harshness and unlovely in life. But night in the goblin-land, where Dick

found himself suddenly deserted, with fantastic forms swaying in the

lazy wind, would have had terrors for the most constant mind; terrors

such as filled the soul of MacBeth, when Birnam wood came marching to

Dunsinane. In an instant, as it seemed to Dick's exalted and painfully

impressionable sense, every separate leaf, branch, brier, copse, and

jungle, was endowed with a voice of its own--hateful, irritating,

mocking. Swarms of peering eyes hovered in the air, glowering uncanny

menace into the boy's wild, dilating vision.

Brave, even to recklessness, Dick was, as you have seen; but no sooner

had the glimmer of Jack's torch flickered and fluttered into the black

distance, making place for the monstrous shapes, the luring shadows, and

threatening forms encompassing him, than Dick threw himself, with a

wailing shriek, into the morass in a wild attempt to follow.

In an instant he was up to his middle in mud and water. He seized the

prickly branches coiling about and above him; he gasped in prayerful

pleading, the home teaching still strong in him; but there was no

answer, save the crooning night-birds and the croaking frogs. Slimy

things touched his torn flesh; whirring birds shot past him, disturbed

in their night perches. The deadly odor, pungent and nauseous, of a

thousand exhaling herbs, filled his nostrils. The darkness grew,

instinct with threatening forms. He gasped, struggled, and in a fervent

outburst of thanksgiving regained the dank mound. Ah, there was life on

that! human life. Jones slept, the stertorous sleep of delirium. He

murmured brokenly. Dick was too terrified to distinguish what he said.

The blaze of the pine knot flared from side to side as the sighing

breeze arose from the brackish pools, protesting the vitality of even

this moribund hades. Ah! if he could but lie down and bury his face. The

horses? They were feeding tranquilly yonder, standing up to their knees

in mosses and water. The lines that tied them were long. They could move

about. This was some comfort. They were more human than the dreadful

specters that filled the place.

Ah! the blessed, blessed light that flamed out from the merry

pine-torch; he didn't wonder that half the Eastern world worshiped fire.

He adored it--blessed, blessed fire--the sign of God, the beacon of the

human. Hark! What half-human--or rather wholly inhuman--sounds are these

that alternate in unearthly measure? Surely animal nature has no voice

so strident, vengeful, odious. Can it be animals of prey? No. The

Virginia forests are dangerous only in snakes. Snakes? Ah, yes! He

shrinks into shadow against the oak at this suggestion; snakes? the

deadly moccasin, that prowls as well by night as day. Ugh! what's this

at his feet--soft, clammy, shining in the flaring light? He leaps upon

the smooth tree-trunk, growing slantwise instead of perpendicular. What

if the torch and the odor of flesh should draw the snakes to the

sleeper? The flame flares in wide, lurid curves, revealing the outlines

of the sleeping man. Heavens, what a terrible face! He moves in

spasmodic contortions. He is smothering. The veins of his neck will

break if he is not awakened.

"O my God! my God! have mercy!" Dick buries his face in his hands, as he

clings desperately to the smooth white-oak trunk. A strange, wild

strain, like a detached chord of a vesper melody, sounds above him! It

is the whippoorwill--steadily, continuously, entrancingly the dulcet

measure is taken up and echoed, until the slough of despond seems

transformed into a varying diapason of melancholy minstrelsy. He dares

not raise his head. It will vanish if he moves. He crouches, panting,

almost exultant, in the sense of recovered faculties, or rather the

suspension of numbing fear. How long will it last? He must move; his

limbs are cramped and aching. He raises his head. Mortal powers! the

torch is flickering into ashes! Another instant and he will be in the

dark. Dare he move? Dare he seek the distant pine, between him and which

the black surface of the murky sheet shines, dotted with uncanny growth

and reptilian things? Yes; anything is better than the hideous darkness

of this hideous place.

The horse he rode has broken his leash and comes to him with a gentle

whinny, as if asking why the delay in such a place. "Blessed, blessed

God, that made a beast so human!" He caresses it, he clings to its neck

and calls to it piteously. Ah, yes; the dying light. He must renew it.

He slips down upon the bare back and urges the patient beast across the

brackish morass. Ah, this is life again! He is not alone. This noble

beast is human. It crops the tender leaves confidingly, and swings its

head as much as to say: "Don't fear, Dick; Fin here. I'll stand by you;

I don't forget the pains you took to get me water, and that particularly

toothsome measure of oats you cribbed in the rebel barn near

Williamsburg!"

But the pine knot that will burn is not so easily found. Dick was forced

to go a long way before he came upon the resinous sort. He brought back

a supply, having taken the precaution to provide matches in order to

secure his way back. The quest had to some extent lessened the morbid or

supernatural forms of his terrors. They all returned, however, when,

having dismounted, he forgot to tie the horse, and it wandered off in

search of herbage. He called, but the beast made no sign of returning.

Alone again. Alone in the night; spectral forms about him; the sleeping

man adding to the ghostliness of the scene by his incoherent mutterings,

his hideous, gulping breath, his ghastly, blood-curdling outcries. Then

through the gloom the shining outlines of the white oak, like shreds of

shrouds hung on funeral foliage. Ah! he would go mad--he must break the

brutish sleep of the sick man.

"Mr. Jones," he wails--and his own voice--the comically commonplace

name, "Mr. Jones," even in the agony of his terror, the humor of the

conjuncture glimmered in the boy's crazed intelligence, and he laughed a

wild, maniacal laugh. But the laugh died out in a pulseless horror. The

sick man uprose on his elbow. Dick, above him on the white-oak trunk,

could see his very eyes bloodshot and wandering. He uprose, almost

sitting. He passed his hand over his staring eyes, and began to murmur:

"Did you bring me here to do murder, Elisha Boone? You have bought my

body, but you never bought my soul. No, no! I will not. I say I will

not. Do you hear? I will not!"

He glared wildly; then, his eyes meeting the full flame of the torch, he

laughed, a dreadful, marrow-freezing laugh, and broke out again in

clearer tones: "I am yours, Elisha Boone, but my boy is not yours. He

was born in my shape, but he has his mother's soul. He will be a man; he

will be your vengeance; he will undo all his father has done. You've

robbed me; you've made me rob others. But if you touch, if you look at

my boy, my first-born, you might as well hold a pistol at your head. I'm

no longer mad. You must treat with him. Ah! yes; I'll do your bidding

with the others. I'll make young Jack as much trouble as you ask, but

you must make a path of gold for my boy. You must give him what you have

robbed from me. Felon? I'm no felon. It was you who plotted it. It was

you that put the means in mad hands. I can face my family. I have no

shame but that I was a coward. My son! He is no coward. He is a soldier.

He is the pride of the Caribees. He is the beloved of--of--"

The gibbering maniac, exhausted in body, still incoherently raving, sank

back in piteous collapse, a terrifying gurgle breaking from his throat,

while his tongue absolutely protruded from his jaws.

Dick, his terrors all forgotten in a new and overmastering horror,

bethought him of Jack's admonition about the water. He slipped down from

the tree, gathered the large moist leaves that clustered near the pool

and held them to the burning lips, Jones swallowed the drops with a

hideous gurgling avidity, clutching the boy's hand ravenously to secure

a more copious flow. There was a tin cup in the holster under the

invalid's head. Taking this, Dick dipped up water from the black pool

between the green leaves; the hot lips sucked it in at one

dreadful gulp.

"More, more; for God's sake, more!"

Dick filled it again, and again it was emptied.

"More--more--I'm burning--more!"

The boy was cruelly perplexed. He remembered vaguely hearing that fever

should be starved; that the thing craved was the dangerous thing; and he

moved away in a sort of compunctious terror.

"More--more! Oh, in the name of God, more!"

The words came gaspingly. Dick thought of the death-rattle he had heard

in Acredale when old man Nagle, the madman, died. He dared not give more

water, but he gathered leaves from the aromatic bushes and pressed them

to the fevered lips. Before he could withdraw them, the eager jaws

closed upon the balsamic shrub. They answered the purpose better than

the most scientific remedy in the pharmacopoeia, for the patient called

for no further drink, and presently fell into profound and undisturbed

sleep. Again the boy was alone with the daunting forces of the dark in

its grimmest and most terrifying mood. Alone! No; his mind was now taken

from all thought of self. He was with a fellow-townsman. The man had

mentioned Boone; had referred to deeds that he had heard all his life

associated with the father he had never seen. A wild thought flashed

upon him. Was the collapsed body at his feet his father's? He could not

see any resemblance in the dark, handsome face to the portrait at home,

though all through the flight from Richmond something in the man's

manner had seemed like a memory. He strove to recall the image his young

mind had cherished, the personality he had heard whispered about in the

gossiping groups of Acredale. This was not the gay, the brilliant, the

fascinating _bon viveur_ who had been the life of society from

Warchester to Bucephalo, from Pentica to New York. Ah! what were the

mystic terrors of the night, what the oppressive surroundings of this

charnel-house of Nature, to the awful spectacle of this unmanned mind,

this delirious echo of past guilt, past cowardice, past shame?

To lessen the somber gloom, Dick had lighted many torches and set them

about the high mound where the sleeper lay in a huddle. Taking little

heed of where he set them, some of them, as the wind arose, flared out

until their flames licked the decayed branches of the fallen white oak.

As the boy crouched, pensive and distraught, he was suddenly aroused by

a vivacious cracking. He looked up. Lines of fire were darting thither

and yon, where dry wood, the _débris_ of years of decay, had been caught

in the thick clumps of underbrush and among the limbs of the trees. The

fire had pushed briskly, and the uncanny glade was now an amphitheatre

of crawling flames, stretching in many-colored banners in a vast circle

about the point of refuge. Dick gazed fascinated, with no thought of

danger. His spirits rose. It was something like life--this gorgeous

decoration of fire. How beautiful it was! How it brought out the shining

lines of the white oak, the glistening green of the cypress! Why hadn't

he thought of this before? Then, as the curling waves of fire pushed

farther and farther up the steins of the trees, and farther and farther

endlessly into the undergrowth, an unearthly outcry and stir began.

Birds, blinded by the light, whirred and fluttered into the open space

above the water, falling helplessly so near Dick that he could have

caught and killed a score to surprise Jack with a game breakfast, when

he returned. Then--ugh!--horror!--great, coiling masses detached

themselves from the tufts of sward, and splashed noisily into the putrid

water, wriggling and convulsed. The invalid still slept--but, dreadful

sight! the coiling monsters, upheaving themselves from the water,

glided, dull eyed and sluggish, upon the mossy island, about the

unconscious figure.

Dick, fascinated and inert, watched the snaky mass, squirming in hideous

folds almost on the recumbent body. Then, aroused to the horror of their

nearness, he seized a torch and made at the slimy heap. The fire

conquered them. They slid off the ground, with forked tongues darting

out in impotent malice. But others, squirming through the water,

wriggled up; and the boy, maddened by the danger, stood his ground,

torch in hand, defending the sleeper.

But now the fire had widened its path, and is enveloping the tiny

island. The serpents, hedged in from the outer line, uproar in

blood-curdling masses, their dull eyes gleaming, and their tongues

phosphorescent, darting out in their agony. Dick doesn't mind them now,

for he has, for the first time, begun to realize that his illumination

has destruction as the sequel of its delight. Great clouds of smoke

settle a moment on the water and then rise, impelled by the cold

surface. Even the green verdure begins to roll back where the crackling

flames play into the more compact wall of incombustible timber. The

sleeper murmurs in his dreams. Dick casts about despairingly. He hears

the horses--they have broken their tethers--he can hear them whinnying,

upbraidingly, far off. Wherever he casts his eye, volumes of fire dart

and sway, always coming inward, first scorching the green limbs, then

fastening on the tender stems and turning them to glowing lines of

cordage; only the great sheet of water, inky, terrible, and threatening

a few hours before, protects him and his charge. The hissing snakes have

sunk into it.

Bevies of birds, supernaturally keen of sight, have dropped upon the

twigs that lie on the glittering bosom of the water. Dick, in all the

agonized uncertainty of that night of peril, thinks with wonder on the

mysterious resources Nature provides its helpless outcasts. The hideous

shallows, black, glistening, are now a belt of safety, not only for

himself and the sleeper, but a refuge for all manner of whirring birds

and crawling things, intimidated and harmless in the stifling breath of

the fire. The flame, leaping from sedge to sedge, from trunk to trunk,

seems to seek, with a human instinct, and more than human pertinacity,

food for its ravening hunger; far upward, where festoons of moss hung

from the sycamores in the day, airy banners of starry sparks, swayed,

coiled, and flamed among the branches. But Dick was soon reminded that

the scene was not for enjoyment, however fantastically fascinating.

The smoke, at first rising from the burning brakes, lodged among the

tree-tops; then, meeting the humid night-air in the matted leaves,

descended slowly. Dick found himself nearly smothered when he had partly

recovered from the spell-bound wonder of the demoniac _fête_. The ground

under his feet felt gratefully cool. He bent down, and shudderingly

laved his burning face in the inky water. The sick man had slept more

peacefully during the last half-hour. He no longer breathed in gasping

efforts; his sleep was unbroken by muttering or outcry. But now he must

be aroused. He must be taken out of the circle of fire, for, sooner or

later, the curling waves would lick downward from the dry vines above

and scorch the mound. How to get away? The horses were long since gone.

They might be miles from the spot! Dick touched the sleeping man, filled

with a new suspense. He breathed so softly, or did he breathe at all?

"For God's sake, Mr. Jones, wake up! We must go from here; the swamp is

burning!"

"Eh--who is it? Where am I? Was--I dreaming? I thought my boy was with

me, and we were in the old home at Acredale."

He lay quite still, staring upward with unseeing eyes. Dick's heart gave

a great throb of grateful, devout thanksgiving. The madness and fever

were gone.

"You remember you were too worn out to go on, and Jack has gone to get

food. But the swamp has caught fire, and we must move away."

Jones had risen to his elbow; then, with an exclamation that sounded

like an oath, to his feet, gazing on the flaming specters rising and

falling, enlarging and shrinking, among the black tracery of limbs

and trunks.

"You ought to have waked me before," Jones said, when he had swept the

scene, with sane realization in his eye. "I'm afraid we can never break

through the fire. It reaches a mile or more all about us, and I--I am in

no condition to move. I feel as if I had been down months with illness."

"But if you could eat something you would be able to move," Dick

ventured, cruelly hurt at the implied delinquency.

"Eat!" Jones held up one of the luckless torches that Dirk had lighted

in a circle about the mound, and began to examine the ground. "What is

there to eat? Stay! By Heaven, I have it! The bushes are filled with

fluttering game. There, see that! and that, and that!" As he spoke he

had thrust the burning torch into a thick clump of bushes, dense and

glistening as laurels, that looked like wild huckleberry. The branches

were laden with birds, and in a moment be had seized three or four

partridges.

"What better do we need? We have salt, water, and fire. I'll prepare

them. Do you keep your face well bathed, and heap up embers at the foot

of that ash."

Sure enough, sometimes hidden by billows of smoke, rising lazily among

the burning bushes, Jones stripped the birds, spitted them on his

bayonet, and, holding them in the hot coals, soon presented a

well-browned portion to his companion.

"I have had a good deal worse fare than this, my young friend. I have

been in the West, when fire, Indians, and hunger besieged us at the same

time. But we should have a poor chance here if it were not for the wet

grass and the everlasting water. If we can manage to keep clear of the

smoke, we shall be all right, but the smoke seems to grow denser. Where

can it come from?"

"Great Heavens! do you hear that? Shots--one--two! That's Jack's signal.

He--he is near. He is in danger. I must go to him." Dick cried. "Listen;

more shots. No, that can't be the signal. There, do you hear that? A

volley. The rebels are after them, or we are near the outposts, and the

two armies are skirmishing."

Yes; the shots now sounded more frequently, but they seemed to be fired

not far away.

"It is Jack. I know it is Jack, and he is in peril. I must go to him. I

can not stay here. Surely there is no danger in pushing toward

the firing?"

"There is every danger. In the first place, the smoke will smother us.

Then suppose we reached the spot? We might be nearer the rebels than our

friends. They know where we are. If they are not taken, they will come

back for us. If they are taken, we must do our best to get to our lines

and send out a scouting party. Be guided by me, youngster. I am an older

hand in business of this sort than you are."

The boy stood irresolute. Both listened intently. The firing had

stopped. A great sough of rising storm came from the northwest, carrying

a hot, blinding mass of smoke and flame into the little retreat. They

flung themselves on the damp ferns to keep their breath. Still the

breeze rose, until it became a wind--a spasm of hurricane. It was

madness to linger, for the flames now licked the ground, driven down

anew by the blast. Then Jones spoke decisively: "Strap a pine torch to

your body. I will do the same. Take all you can carry and follow in my

wake." Jones, as he spoke, seized a torch, extinguished it, and handed

it to Dick. Equipped as he had directed, they set out, half crawling,

half swimming, to avoid the volumes of smoke hovering in the thick,

cactus-like leaves of the wild laurel. Presently they emerged, after

toil and misery, that excitement alone enabled the boy to support, into

what seemed a cleared space. But as soon as their eyes could distinguish

clearly, they found themselves on the edge of a wide pond. The fire was

now behind them. They could stand erect and breathe the pure, cool air.

"Ah, now we are in luck!" Jones whispered. "We will walk to the right,

on the edge of this lake, and keep it between us and the fire. We have

got out of that purgatory; now if we could only signal our friends."

"Hist!" whispered Dick, "I hear some one moving behind us."

They crouched down in the thick reeds and waited. The sky above was

darkly overcast; an occasional burst of lightning revealed the

dimensions of the pond, and they could see high ground on the eastern

shore, covered by enormous pines.

"If we can only reach the pines we shall be all right. There the ground

will be dry and soft and you can get some rest. I'm afraid, my boy, it

will go hard with you if you don't."

"I don't mind what happens if we can only come up with Jack. There, do

you hear that?"

Yes, both could plainly hear voices ahead of them on the margin of the

pond. They were talking in low tones, and the words were

undistinguishable.

"We must crawl back toward the bush, and get as near those folks as we

can," Jones whispered. They made their way easily into the high bushes

and stole forward in the direction of the voices. But as they had to

guard against breaking twigs or hurtling branches, which would have

betrayed them, their advance was slow. When they reached the vicinity

where they had fancied the voices to be, all was silent.

"Sound the call; perhaps that will lead to something," Jones whispered

in Dick's ear.

But, unnerved by the trying experience of the night, or worn out by

fatigue, Dick's call was far from the significant signal he had

practiced with Jack. He repeated it several times, but there was no

response. There was, however, something more startling. A few rods

beyond them a flame suddenly shot up, lighting a group of cavalry

patrols standing beside a fire just kindled.

"Rebels!" Jones whispered. "Now we must be slippery as snakes. If they

have no dogs, we are all right. If you hear the whimper of a hound,

follow me like lightning and plunge into the water. That'll break the

trail. Stay here and let me reconnoitre a bit. Have no fear. I'll go in

no danger."

Jones crept away, leaving Dick by no means easy in his mind, but he no

longer felt the terror that numbed him in the deep wood. Here there was

companionship. By pushing the branches aside he could see the figures

lounging about the fire; he could see the dark vault of the sky, and was

not oppressed by the hideous shapes and shadows of the dense jungle.

Jones meanwhile had pushed within earshot of the group. He flattened his

body against a friendly pine and listened.

"I reckon they ain't the Westover niggers, for they were traced to the

Pamunkey; these rascals are most likely from the south side--"

"If Jim gets here with the dogs in an hour, we can be back to the

barracks for breakfast."

"Ef it hadn't been for that blamed fire in the swamp, we should have had

them before this. The rascal that fired at Tom wasn't a musket-shot from

me when the smoke poured out and hid him."

"They've gone into the swamp. The dogs'll soon tree them. I'm going to

turn in till the dogs come. One of you stay awake and keep a sharp eye

toward the creek."

"All right, sergeant. You won't have more'n a cat-nap. Bilcox's dogs are

over at the ford, I know, for they were brought there's soon as the news

of the Yankee escape came."

"I hope they are; but I'm afraid they are not. If they are, we shall

soon hear them."

Jones had heard enough. Hastening back to Dick, he asked:

"Can you swim?"

"Yes, I'm a good swimmer."

"Very well; throw away everything--no, stay--that would betray us. When

we reach the water bury all you can't carry in the sand and then

follow me."

They were forced to retrace their painful way through the bushes to

reach a place as distant from the point of pursuit as possible. A

half-mile or more from their starting-place they found themselves in a

running stream. Jones examined it in both directions, and bade Dick

enter it and follow in the water, pushing upward in the bed, waist-deep,

a hundred yards. Then, climbing to the bank, he groped about until he

found a slender white oak. Climbing this as high as he could get, he

slowly swung off, and, the tree bending down to the very stream, he

dropped back into the water and rejoined Dick. Both waded in the middle

of the stream until they reached the pond, and then struck out toward

the pine clump the lightning had revealed a little while before. There

was no need of swimming, and, finding it possible to wade, Jones decided

to retain the pistols and ammunition which he had at first resolved to

bury as impeding the flight. The bottom appeared to be hard sand, a

condition often found in Southern ponds near the inflow of the sea. They

had gone a mile or more, keeping just far enough from the bank to remain

undistinguishable, when the appalling baying of a hound sounded from the

farther end of the pond, where the patrol fire gleamed faintly among

the trees.

"Now, youngster, we must keep all our wits at work. The dogs will push

on to where we hid. They will follow to the stream, and I think I have

given them the slip there. Then they will beat about and follow our

trail into the cypress swamp. There the horses will mislead them, and if

you can only hold out, so soon as daylight comes we can strike into the

pines and make for the Union lines."

"I--I--think I can--ah!--"

Dick reeled helplessly and would have sunk under the water, if Jones had

not caught him.

"Courage, my boy, courage! Don't give up now, just as we are near

rescue!"

But Dick was unconscious, the strain of the early part of the night, the

desperate fight through the brakes, all had told on the slight frame,

and Jones stood up to his middle in the dark water, holding the

fainting boy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

IN THE UNION LINES.

If there is reason as well as rhyme in the old song that danger's a

soldier's delight and a storm the sailor's joy, Jack and his comrade

were in for all the delights that ever gladdened soldier or sailor boy.

When they left Dick and Jones, the eager couriers tore through the

marshy lowlands, the stubbly thickets and treacherous quagmires, poor

Barney, panting and groaning in his docile desire to keep up with his

leader, as he had done often in boyish bravado.

"There'll not be a rag on me body nor a whole bone in me skin when we

get out of this!" he gasped, as they reached high ground between two

spreading deeps of mingled weeds and water. "The sight of us'd frighten

the whole rebel army, if we don't come on them aisy loike, as the fox

said when he whisked into the hen-house."

"He was a very considerate fox, Barney. Most of the personages you

select to illustrate your notions seem to me to be gifted with little

touches of thoughtfulness. Barney, you ought to write a sequel to Aesop.

There never was out of his list of animal friends such wise beasts,

birds, and what not as you seem to have known."

"Jack, dear, if a man lived on roses would the bees feed on him? If he

ate honeysuckle instead of hard-tack would he be squeezed for his scents

to fill ladies' smelling-bottles?"

"I don't know that sense is always a recommendation to women," Jack

shifts his burden to say tentatively, as Barney, involved in a more than

commonly obstinate brier, loses the thread of this jocose induction.

"Ah, Jack, dear, ye're weak in ye're mind when you fall to play on words

like that."

"You mean my sense is small?"

"Not that at all. Sure, it's a hero's mind ye show when you can find

heart to make merry at a time like this!"

"Yes--'he jests at love who never felt a throb.'"

"Then you've a hard heart--and I know I lie when I say it, as Father

Mike McCune said to himself when he tuk the oath to King George in

'98--if ye're heart never throbbed in Acredale beyant, for there's many

a merry one cast down entirely that handsome Jack's gone."

"Come, come, Barney; it's dark, and I can't see the grin that saves this

from fulsome blarney."

"Indeed, then--"

"Hark!"

Through the monotonous noises of the night the clanking of steel and the

neighing of horses could be heard just ahead.

"We must move cautiously now, Barney. Try to put a curb on your tongue,

and let your reflections mature in your busy brain."

"Put me tongue in bonds to keep the peace, as Lawyer Donigan cautioned

Biddy Gavan when the doctor said she was driving the parish mad with

her prate."

"Sh!--sh!--you noisy brawl; we shall have a platoon of cavalry upon us.

Even the birds have stopped crooning to catch your delicate brogue!"

"'Tis only the ill-mannered owl that makes game of me--if--"

"Sh! Come on. Bend low. Do as I do--if you can see me. If not, keep

touch on my arm."

"As the wolf said to the lamb when he bid him take a walk in the

wather."

They had now emerged on the reedy margin of the dark pool discovered by

Dick and Jones later. All was silent. The sky was full of stars--so full

that, even in the absence of the moon, there was a transparent clarity

in the air that enabled Jack to take definite bearings.

"This must be an outlet of the York River, the stream we saw this

afternoon. If it be, then we are not far from our own outposts. The

troopers we heard just now may be Union soldiers. We must wait patiently

to let them discover themselves. Keep abreast of me, and don't, as you

value your life, speak above a whisper--better not to speak at all."

"That's what the priest said to Randy Maloney's third wife when she

complained that he bate her."

"Barney, I'll throttle you if you don't keep that mill you call your

tongue still."

"Ah, I'll hold it in me fist, as Mag Gleason held her jaw, for fear her

tooth would lep out to get more room to ache."

Jack laughed. "If we're caught it will be through your jokes, for bad as

they are I must laugh at some of them."

"Dear, oh dear no; you may save the laugh till a convenient time, as

Hugh McGowen kept his penances, until his head was clear, and there was

no whisky in the jar."

They had been pushing on rapidly--noiselessly, during this whispered

dispute, and now found themselves at the reedy margin of a wide inlet,

where, from the swift motion of the water and the musical gurgling, they

could tell they were by the side of a main channel.

"We must push on southward, and see if there is a crossing. If we come

to one, that will tell us where we are, for it will be guarded, you may

be sure," said Jack, buoyantly.

"Yes, but I'd rather find a hill of potatoes and a drop than all the

soldiers in the two armies."

"You are not logical, Barney. If we find soldiers, we'll find rations;

though I have my doubts about the sort of 'drop' you'll be apt to find

down here."

"There was enough corn in the field beyant to keep a still at work for a

winter," Barney lamented with a sigh, recalling fields of grain they had

passed near Williamsburg, which he vaguely alluded to as "beyant."

"I wish some of the 'still' were on the end of your tongue at this

moment."

"With all me heart--'twould do yer sowl good to see the work it'd give

me tongue to do to hould itself," Barney gasped, trying to keep abreast

of his reviler. "Be the dark eyes of Pharaoh's daughter there's a field

beyant--yes, and a shebeen; d'ye see that?"

They had suddenly emerged in a cleared place. Against the horizon they

could distinctly distinguish the outlines of a cabin, the "shebeen"

Barney alluded to.

"Yes, we're in luck. It's a negro shanty. We shall find friends there,

if we find anybody. Now, do be silent."

"If the field was full of girruls, with ears as big as sunflowers, they

wouldn't hear me breathe, so have no fear. A hill of potatoes all eyes

couldn't see us in such darkness as this."

For dense clouds had swiftly come up from the west, covering the

horizon. After careful reconnoitring, requiring a circuit of the

clearing, Jack ventured to make directly for the dark outlines of the

cabin. War had obviously not visited the place, for as they passed a low

outhouse the startled cackle of chickens sounded toothsomely, and Barney

came to a delighted halt.

"Sure we'd better get a bite to ate while we may, as th' ass said when

he passed th' market car, for who knows what'll happen if we stop to ask

by your lave?"

For answer Jack gave him a sharp push, and the discomfited plunderer

hurried on with a good-humored grunt. All was silent in the cabin. The

windows were slatted, without glass, and the door was unfastened. Jack

pushed in boldly, leaving Barney to guard the rear. Peaceful snoring

came from one corner, and Jack, shading a lighted match with his hand,

looked about him. In the hurried glimpse he caught sight of an old negro

on a husk mattress, and the heads of young boys just beyond. They were

sleeping so soundly that the striking of the match never aroused them.

Jack had to shake the man violently before the profound sleep

was broken.

"I say, wake up! or can you wake?"

"What dat? Who's dar--you, Gabe? What you 'bout?"

The old man shuffled to a sitting posture, and Jack, renewing his match,

held it in the negro's blinking eyes.

"Have you any food? We are Yankees, and want something for companions in

the swamp. Are we in danger here? We heard cavalry-men on the other side

of the pond; are they rebel or Yankee?"

At this volley of questions the bewildered man turned piteously to the

sleepers, and then stared at Jack in perplexity.

"'Deed, marsa captain, I don no noffin 'tall, I--I hain't been to de

crick fo' a monf. I'se fo'bid to go da--I--"

"Well, well, have you any food? Get that first, and then talk," Jack

cried, impatiently.

But now the boys were awake, and Jack had to give them warning to make

no noise. Yes, there was food, plenty. Cooked bacon, hoe-cake, and cold

chicken, boiled eggs, and, to Barney's immeasurable joy, sorghum whisky.

The hunger of the invaders satisfied, each provided himself with a sack

to feed the waiting comrades; and while this was going on they extracted

from the now reassured negroes that the spot was just behind Warick

Creek, near Lee's Mills; that parties of rebels from the fort at

Yorktown had been at work building lines of earthworks, and that every

now and then Yankees came across and skirmished in the woods a mile or

two up in the direction whence Jack had come. The cabin was only a step

from the main road, upon which the rebels were encamped--a regiment or

more. Some Yankee prisoners had been captured early in the morning, and

were in the block-house, a short distance up the road.

"Can you lead us near the block-house?" Jack asked.

"I reckon I can; but ef I do they'll shu' ah' find it out, and den I'se

don, 'cos Marsa Hinton--he's in de cavalry--he'll guess dat it was me

dat tuk you 'uns dar."

"Do you want to be free? Do you want to go into the Union lines?"

"Free! oh, de Lor', free! O marsa captain, don't fool a ole man. Free!

I'd rudder be free dan--dan go to Jesus--almost."

"Have you a wife--are these your children?"

"My ole woman is up at Marsa Hinton's; she's de nuss gal. Dese is my

boys; yes, sah."

"Very well; we're going into the Union lines. You know the country

hereabouts. Help us to find our friends in the swamp, and we will take

you all with us," Jack said; but feeling a good deal of compunction, as

he was not so sure that the freedom bestowed upon these guileless

friends might not, for a time at least, be more of a hardship than their

happy-go-lucky servitude. Meanwhile, in the expansion of renewed hopes

and full stomachs, no watch had been kept on the outside; a tallow dip

had been lighted, and the whole party busied in getting together such

necessaries as could be carried. One of the boys, passing the door,

uttered a stifled cry:

"Somebody comin' from de road."

"Where can we hide? Don't put out the light; that will look suspicions!"

Jack whispered, making for the window in the rear, "Is there a cellar,

or can we get on the roof?" But the dark group were too terrified to

speak. They ran in a mob to the doorway, luckily the most adroit

manoeuvre they could hit upon, for with the dip flaring in the current

of air, the room was left in darkness. Jack and Barney slipped through

the low lattice, and by means of a narrow shed reached the low roof.

They could hear the tramp of horses, how many they could not judge, and

then a gruff voice demanding:

"You, Rafe, what ye up to? What ye got a light burnin' this time o'

night fo'?"

"'Deed, marsa, it's nuffin'--fo' God, marsa! I was gittin' de stomach

bottle fo' Gabe--he eat some jelly root fo' supper and he's been

powerful sick--frow his insides out--I--"

"Leave your horses, boys. Rafe's got some of Hinton's best sorghum

whisky--you, there, nigger, get us a jug and some cups."

How many dismounted Jack couldn't make out, but presently there was a

heavy tramping in the cabin and then a ferocious oath.

"What does this mean; why have you got all these traps packed? Going to

cut to the Yankees! Don't lie, now--you'll get more lashes for it."

Jack listened breathlessly. Would the quavering slaves have presence of

mind to divert suspicion? There was a pause, and then the old man cried,

pleadingly:

"We'se gwine to lebe dis place; we's gwine up to de house in de mornin'.

My ole woman can't come down heah now, case de sojers is always firm',

and Mars' Hinton told us to come to de quarters, sah."

"I don't believe a word of it, you old rascal. I'll see whether Hinton

has ordered you to leave here. Likely story, indeed; leave one of his

best fields with no one to care for it. Git the whisky and stop your

mumbling. You, there, you young imps, step about lively--do you heah?"

There was the sound of a sharp stroke, then a howl of pain and a

boisterous laugh.

"You keep an eye on the rear and I will see how many horses there are,"

Jack's lips murmured in Barney's ear. He slid cautiously down the

slanting roof until he came to the corner where he saw the dark group of

horses. There were three--tied to the peach-trees. He made his way back

to Barney and whispered:

"There are but three horses. If you are up to an adventure I think we

can make this turn to our profit."

"I'm up to anything, as the cat said when Biddy Hiks's plug ran her up

the crab-tree."

"Very well. Come after me."

The sorghum, meanwhile, had been handed to the raiders in the cabin, and

the men could be heard making merry.

"You, Gabe, go out and mind the horses; see that they don't twist the

bridles about their legs."

Gabe sallied out and one of his brothers with him. As they neared the

horses Jack came upon them, and taking the elder, Gabe, in the shadow of

the house, he whispered:

"Have the soldiers' pistols?"

"Yes, sah."

"Where are they?"

"De put dem on de stool, neah de doah."

"Good. How many?"

"Free."

"Have they swords?"

"Yes, sah."

"Where are they?"

"On de stool, too."

"That will do; keep with the horses, and don't be frightened if you hear

anything. We'll give you freedom yet, if you'll be prudent."

He could hear the men grumbling because the food was not enough to go

around. The liquor had begun to work in their systems, drinking so

lavishly, and without nourishment to absorb its fiery quality. Jack let

enough time pass to give this ally full play in disabling the troopers,

then taking Barney to the rear of the cabin, whispered:

"I will dash in at the door, seize the weapons, and demand surrender.

You make a great ado here; give command, as if there were a squad. The

boys will make a loud clatter with the horses, and we shall bag the game

without a blow. Now, be prudent. Barney, and we will go into the Union

lines in triumph."

Inside the men were laughing uproariously, mingling accounts of love and

war in a confused medley--how a sweetheart in Petersburg was only

waiting for the stars on her lover's collar to make him happy; how the

Yankees would be wiped out of the Peninsula as soon as Jack Magruder got

his nails pared for fight; how three Yankees had been gobbled that day,

and how others were in the net to be taken in the morning. The bacchanal

was at its highest when Jack, dashing into the open doorway, placed

himself between the drinkers and their arms, and cried, sternly, as he

pointed his pistol at the group:

"Surrender, men! You are surrounded!"

"Close up, there! Keep your guns on a line with the windows; don't fire

till I give the order!" Barney could be heard at the window in

suppressed tones, as he, too, covered the maudlin company. Gabe and his

brother added to the effect of numbers by clattering the stirrups of the

horses, so that the clearing seemed alive with armed men.

The troopers, sobered and astonished, half rose, and then as these

sounds of superior force emphasized the menace of Jack's pistol in front

and Barney's in the rear, they sank back in their seats, the spokesman

saying, tipsily:

"I don't see as we've much choice."

"No, you have no choice.--Sergeant, bring in the cords," Jack ordered.

Barney at this came in with a clothes-line Jack had prepared from the

negroes' posts. The arms of the three men were bound behind them, and

then Jack retired with his aide to hold a council of war. Without the

negro they could never retrace their way to Dick. But how could they

carry the prisoners with them? Manifestly it could not be done. It was

then agreed that Barney should take the prisoners, the horses, and the

old man, with the younger boys, and make for the Union lines, not a mile

distant. Jack, meanwhile, with little Gabe, would go to the rescue of

Dick. If firing were heard later, Barney would understand that his

friends were in peril, and, if the Union outposts were in sufficient

strength, they could come to the rescue, and, perhaps, add to the

captures of the night. Barney was now serious enough. He was reminded of

no joke by the present dilemma, and remained very solemn, as Jack

enlarged on the glories of the proposed campaign. How all Acredale would

applaud the intrepidity of its townsmen snatching glory from peril!

Barney consented to leave him with reluctance, suggesting that the "ould

nagur" could take the prisoners "beyant."

"Gabe has shown sense and courage, and I shall be much more likely to

reach Dick and extricate him and Jones, alone, than if I had this

cavalcade at my heels."

Jack and Barney were forced to laugh at the big-eyed wonder in old

Rafe's eyes when he was informed of the imposing part he was to play in

the warlike comedy. To be guard over "white folks," to dare to look them

in the face without fear of a blow, in all his sixty years Rafael Hinton

had never dreamed such a mission for a man of color. The troopers, too

tipsy and subdued to remark the sudden paucity of the force that had

overcome them, were tied upon their own steeds, Barney in front of the

leader, and Rafe and his son in charge of the two others.

Rafe led the way in trembling triumph. He knew the ford, indeed, every

foot of the country, and had no misgivings about reaching the Union

lines. Jack watched the squad until it disappeared in the fringe of

trees, and then, turning to the tearful Gabe, said, encouragingly:

"Now, we must do as well when we go among the Union soldiers. You know

the point in the swamp I have told about. How long will it take us to

reach that the shortest way?"

"Ef we had dad's dugout we could save right smart."

"You mean we could get there by water?"

"Yes, sah. We ken go all froo de swamp in a boat."

"Then I'm afraid it is not the place I mean, for we found as much land

as water."

"Dey ain't no odder swamp neah heah, sah."

"Well, we'll try my route first. If that misleads us, we shall try the

boat. Can you find it?"

"Suah."

"Where is it?"

"Ober neah the blockhouse. De sogers done tuk it to fish."

"Ah, yes, the blockhouse! I must look into that! Now, we must hurry.

Skirt the edge of the water and make no noise."