“You care for him about as you would for a gal, don’t you?” said this Virginia barbarian then. “Well, he’s pootier than any gal I ever see anywhar. Look here, this is jest what I want to say to you. Ef you should put him and you in that thar boat, and float down the river, you’d come to your own lines. Ef I should see you do it, I’d stop you; but I’m going to take a snooze by the fire here, for I’m powerful tired. Ef I should wake up, I should fire on you, ef I saw you; and so would others. But I can’t allus aim straight in the dark; and, whar one aims, others is likely to. Now I have done you a good turn for what you’ve did to me; and ef ever we meet again, by God, I’ll kill you.”
“But I can’t in honor escape,” said Ned.
“Of course you can’t,” said the man; “and, if you could, of course you wouldn’t tell me. There, I don’t want no more to say to you. Just git, that’s all you’ve got to do.”
Ned went back full of this new temptation. The other pickets were dispersed, the river rolled on invitingly, and Tom seemed to be sleeping more quietly than before.
“Perhaps I can get him exchanged in the morning,” said Ned, “since he’s so ill. I am glad that he is sleeping.”
Just at this moment, Tom awoke hurriedly, and looked about him wildly and vacantly, then fell back again.
“Oh, if Ned were only here!” he groaned,—“if Ned were only here!”
“Ned is here, Tom, close beside you, as always,” said Ned, softly.
“If Ned were here,” muttered Tom, “he would help me. O Ned, Ned! do come, do please come and help me to see my mother!”
“I will,” whispered Ned, solemnly. Not an instant was to be lost. Without daring to think, without daring to look around him, then he lifted Tom and laid him in the boat. The keel grated on the pebbly shore. He started nervously and turned; but the faithless picket was laboriously sleeping. In an instant more he had thrown off his outer garments; and, with the rope of the boat tied around his neck, he half swam, half drifted, with the strong current down the stream. Weak from his late sickness, and the excitement and efforts of the night, his swimming soon exhausted him; and he clung to the side of the boat, and drifted with it. The sky now was marked with black cloud-rifts, that made strange and fantastic outlines on its luminous background; and the white light of the moon was growing gray. On each side of him he saw the black trees standing in groups, now dense, now scattered, along the shores; while ever in his ears was the strange murmur of the torrent, broken only by Tom’s incoherent muttering as he lay in the boat. Then suddenly came the sharp report of a rifle; and he knew that his escape was discovered at last. He heard the bullets whistle by him, then one grazed the side of the boat, but luckily did not come near Tom. At last the firing ceased; but the boat seemed to be drifting into a little cove. He made one desperate effort to push her more into the main current, but in vain; for his strength was now entirely gone. Then he gave one cry, as he saw the first faint gleam of dawn in the east, and the boat struck him, bruised and fainting, against the shore. He crawled feebly upon the bank, the rope still around his neck; and then, stunned and bruised, all consciousness forsook him. The last thing which he knew was, that the birds were just beginning to twitter in the trees.