I turned over on my face, and lay in a kind of stupor. The horrors of Horace’s narration seemed to paralyze all faculties of mind and body, and while Ben was off perfecting his arrangements, I lay through most of the night without moving, my ears ringing with Carlotta’s cries of anguish, and my eyes scorching with the light of my burning home.
About daybreak I awoke from a fitful slumber, full of horrid dreams, to find Ben standing near me with a large bundle on his arm, and a covered basket in his hand. “Great Heavens!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet, “this tame inaction will kill me. I must start now; if you will not go with me, Ben, I must go alone.”
Ben put his bundles down with great deliberation, as he replied:
“John, you know I’d go to Satan’s summer house with you if you wan’t goin’ to live there, but there is such a thing as bein’ in too much hurry. Less get somethin’ to eat first, for we ain’t goin’ to start till after sun up, and we can’t stop to cook dinners. What we’ve got to do ain’t like goin’ to preachin’ with your sweetheart, no how.”
I saw that he knew best, and let him have his own way.
“I have been to Gen. Johnston,” he said, drawing some papers from his pocket, “and got two days leave of absence; here’s his pass through our pickets. Now get your writing tricks and fill up this one as I say.”
He drew from among his papers a regular Federal pass, already printed, with only the date and name to fill up, and gave it to me, telling me to write it for Mrs. Sarah Jenkins and her son. It seemed to me a foolish waste of time, but I did as directed, and signed it as all adjutants do, with such a flourish and complicated A. A. G. that Champollion would have been puzzled to decipher it.
“And now,” said Ben, taking the two passes, “string up your nerves while I get breakfast, and then we’ll dress for the frolic.”
I ate some of the hard tack and drank the cup of coffee which he kindly brought me, and told him I was ready.