The voice at my left took it up:
"Post two, seven o'clock, and all's well!"
From somewhere beyond Sylvia's island the third guard called post three, and silence followed. I was glad to find that they called their posts. It told us that there were only three, and gave a very fair idea of their positions. Of course, we could not hope, with this military precaution, to have one of them fall asleep at a convenient moment. Especially would this not happen with a newly placed guard—and these fellows were on watch to-night for the first time, else we would have seen them, or they us, when we came that morning. Smilax, also, would have discovered them the night before. Sylvia and Echochee, therefore, had just come under suspicion of intending to escape—and we were in the nick of time, although I felt staggered by the job ahead of us.
After another wait the fellow at post one again flashed his torch—on his watch, no doubt, because from time to time there were other flashes and, after the last of these, he called half-past seven. That was good for us, too—the half hours! Eight o'clock came, then half after, then nine. The lights in the camp had been extinguished. A real owl hooted mournfully somewhere back in the forest. I was waiting for post one to be called again when a voice, not twelve inches from my face, whispered:
"All right; come; slow like me. When you think you can no go more slow, then go two times as slow."
Had it not been for that last piece of advice I might have made a mess of things, but by moving at first scarcely more than an inch a minute, by distributing my feeling sense to every part of my body, detecting the slightest pull at my clothing, the merest contact with any little twig that might traitorously snap—in fact, by almost wishing myself along—I came at last free of the palmettoes and lay beside him. From there our progress was easier, and shortly we got to our hands and knees.
After following in this manner for two hundred yards Smilax stopped and sat down.
"You do good," he said. "Wait; me go back."
"What for?" I asked, in surprise. "Tell me what Echochee said?"
"After 'while," he answered. "Me go fix pine needles where we crawl out; then take look at all's-well-men. You wait."