King Lear.
"Out of the Jaws of Death."
At dark, my three friends joined me. We went through the outer gate, in full view of a sentinel, who supposed we were Rebel surgeons or nurses. And then, on that rainy Sunday night, for the first time in twenty months, we found ourselves walking freely in a public street, without a Rebel bayonet before or behind us!
Reaching an open field, a mile from the prison, we crouched down upon the soaked ground, in a bed of reeds, while Davis went to find a friend who had long before promised us shelter. While lying there, we heard a man walking through the darkness directly toward us. We hugged the earth and held our breaths, listening to the beating of our own hearts. He passed so near, that his coat brushed my cheek. We were beside a path which led across the field from one house to another. Davis soon returned, and called us with a low "Hist!" We crept to the fence where he waited.
"It is all right," he said; "follow me."
He led us through bushes and lanes until we found our friend, leaning against a tree in the rain, waiting for us.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed, "you are out at last. I wish I could extend to you the hospitalities of my house; but it is full of visitors, and they are all Rebels. However, I will take you to a tolerably safe place. I have to leave town by a night train in half an hour, but I will tell ---- where you are, and he will come and see you to-morrow."
Hiding in Sight of the Prison.
He conducted us to a barn, in full sight of the prison; directed us how to hide, wrung our hands, bade us Godspeed, and returned to his house and his unsuspecting guests.
We climbed up the ladder into the hay-mow. Davis and Wolfe burrowed down perpendicularly into the fodder, as if sinking an oil-well, until they were covered, heads and all. "Junius" and myself, after two hours of perspiring labor, tunneled into a safe position under the eaves, where we lay, stretched at full length, head to head, luxuriating in the fresh air, which came in through the cracks.