“Snake cyan’ see fuh bite now,” said another. “Ent you know suh rattlesnake’ hab skin ’puntop ’e yeye een Augus’ munt’? ’E bline’. ’E cyan’ see fuh bite.”
“Uh dunkyuh ef ’e yiz bline’, ef uh ’tep ’puntop’um ’e gwine bite me.”
“Go ’way, man, snake ent gwine bite you w’en you hab muskick een you han’ wid dat shaa’p bay’net en t’ing ’puntop’um.”
So all objections were overruled, and the posts established at intervals of a few hundred yards, the password “raccoon” was given to the corporals, and the captain and his inspectors, dismissing the remaining members of the company for a rest period, prepared to test the line of outposts. Making a wide detour they sneaked through the woods almost noiselessly. The dead leaves, fallen during the preceding winter, had softened long ago and were rapidly settling into the thick mold that covered the damp earth. Sneaking up on the farthest sentinel from the rear, Prince was almost upon him before the startled negro challenged “Halt! Weh oonuh gwine? Gimme de passwu’d!”
“Raccoon,” Prince responded.
“Oonuh cyan’ go t’ru ’puntop dat wu’d.”
Prince expostulated. “Raccoon” was the password he had given the corporals to pass on to their men, and having been selected as a word of singular appeal to the negroes, should have been one of the easiest to remember, so he repeated petulantly “Raccoon, raccoon, raccoon.”
“’E yent wut,” insisted the sentinel, as the long bayonet projected threateningly through the gum bushes. “Dat passwu’d cyan’ specify. Da’ longmout’ nigguh f’um Slann’ Ilun’, name Mingo, him dull de cawprul en’ him done tell me de wu’d two time, en’ ’scusin’ oonuh hab dat wu’d, oonuh yent fuh pass.”
As the corporal was several hundred yards away, Prince retired grumbling, and attempted the line at another point. He approached a wary old picket, a noted ’coon hunter, whose experienced ear detected even the soft footfalls of the inspectors, and he hailed them at a distance of 50 yards, in most unmilitary language. “Haw, buck! Oonuh try fuh sneak ’puntop me, enty? Uh binnuh hunt rokkoon en’ dem todduh waa’ment en’ t’ing ’fo’ you bawn! Come out, bubbuh! Uh yeddy you’ foot en’ uh see bush duh shake alltwo. Come out de t’icket. Exwance en’ gimme de passwu’d!”
But they couldn’t give it; not at least intelligibly to the ear of old Cæsar. Prince spoke with only a slight taint of Gullah, and when he had given “raccoon” to his Toogoodoo corporals, who understood him only after several repetitions, he didn’t realize that they would pass it on as “rokkoon” and that as “rokkoon” the “open sesame” of the countersign must be given. Again, therefore, with his own password correctly pronounced, the Captain had reached an impasse, and as Cæsar truculently stuck out both his mouth and his bayonet, the Corporal of the guard was demanded.