“Come on, Binney,” says Mark.
Now that the practical explaining was over, Mark got back to his game of Union prisoners again.
“G-g-good-by, comrades,” says he. “I’ve been chosen to go f-f-first. Maybe I won’t never see you again.”
He looked like he was going to cry. Maybe you won’t think this is so, but when Mark Tidd was pretending anything he pretended so hard he really believed he wasn’t pretending at all.
“The next man,” says he to me, “will start in f-five minnits if he don’t hear the crack of a gun. If he d-d-does he better not come. That will mean I was d-discovered—and killed, most likely.” He started through the hole in the floor. “Five minnits,” says he, and disappeared. But he poked his head up once more.
“G-gimme the clothes-line,” says he.
I handed it to him, and he disappeared for good.
CHAPTER IX
It was pretty hard to wait five minutes before I started, and it was exciting, too. We were so still it made me nervous, but we just couldn’t talk, for we were listening—listening to hear if Mark was discovered. Minute after minute went by, and we didn’t hear a sound, so we concluded he had got away safely. At last my time came. I said good-by to the fellows and went through the floor. This time there was no lantern, and I had to crawl under the house in that black darkness. I found the hole, all right. But I would rather have found it some other way, for I fell into it and got my mouth full of sand again. It was lucky the cover of the paint-pail was on tight, or I’d have spilled it.
It was no trick at all to claw through the little tunnel and get out on the other side. It was dark out of doors—dark and cold and lonesome. Around at the front of the house I could hear some one stirring—I don’t know whether it was Jiggins or Collins—and that made me pretty careful.