Across the road and half way up the hill beyond I could see where Ned crouched, keeping the horses back in the shelter of a low thicket. Knowing exactly where to look for him, he stood out with terrible distinctness to my abnormally keen sight, and I trembled whenever I saw a soldier turn his head in that direction.
Even now, as I think it over, with all my increased experience and knowledge of hair-breadth escapes, it seems simply incredible that we ever got through. But get through we did.
By eight o'clock, exhausted to faintness from hard riding, lack of food and loss of sleep, and with horses reeling from fatigue, we turned out onto a road which in a few minutes took us beyond danger. Loyal hands placed fresh horses at our disposal, and with little loss of time, we were covering the last ten miles of our ride.
Soon the bit of paper, that "Lost Dispatch," which through all that long and fearful night had been the elixir that nerved me to my work, was in the hands of the proper officer, and I had communicated to him the additional information I had gathered. Both information and dispatch, without delay, were carried to the Commander in Chief.
I only did my duty. My responsibility ended there. But looking back now, it seems, as it did then, that better results should have been obtained through a quick action on the intelligence gathered.
THE END.