I could not but be touched at his anxiety about me, impatient as I was at the delay which it caused.
We started almost immediately. Captain DeLacy rode at the side of the buggy and the squad of men with him a short distance in advance. The road was clear, and we made excellent time.
At last the moment of separation came. His real farewell had already been said, so before following his men down the dark path, into which they had turned, the Captain paused only for some cautions to Ned and a quickly spoken "good bye" to me, which held as much as was ever put in that simple word.
I realized fully what the parting was to him. He had accepted me as Salome, without doubt or question, and to leave me with no other protector than Ned tried him sorely.
I leaned out of the buggy and looked back after him, with a feeling of pain that surprised me. As he disappeared, a presentment that I should never see him again crept over me, followed by an idle speculation whether it was he or I who was first to meet our fate, a feeling which I remembered well a few months later, when I received the news that Captain DeLacy had been shot in battle.
CHAPTER XIII.
Shaking off the dim sense of foreboding, I gave my thoughts entirely to the task before me. I had decided to make my way down the side of the river I was then on. From what I had learned of the position of the enemy, I knew the risk would be no greater than if I crossed to the opposite shore, and I hoped to save many weary miles of travel. Being well aware of the extreme caution shown on our side, I thought the chances were that our army would be yet in the neighborhood of the place where I left them, and I aimed for that point.
I told Ned that I had secured a paper of the utmost importance, and that if I were shot and he escaped, he was to take the paper from its place of concealment and carry it on.