"Here is Camden," Levin thought; "where shall I go? If I turn south I shall get no bed nor food all night, and be picked up in the mornin' fur a kidnapper. I can't go back. The big river or the ocean, I reckon, is before me. What would Jimmy Phœbus do?"
He held the animal in as he asked this question, and paused at the crossing of the great State road.
The idea slowly spread upon his whole existence that James Phœbus would, in Levin's place, ride instantly to Dover and give the alarm.
Levin tried to construct Phœbus in a mood to give some other advice, but, as the resolute pungy captain's form seemed to bestride the young man's mind, it rose more and more stalwart, and appeared to lead towards Dover, where so many poor souls, in the joys of intercourse and freedom, were like little birds unconscious of the hawks above them, and no man in the world but Levin Dennis could save them from death or bondage.
Would James Phœbus, with his lion nature, ever hesitate in the duty of a citizen and a Christian under such circumstances, or forgive another man for withholding information that might be life and liberty and mercy?
Yet there was Van Dorn to be betrayed. What would Van Dorn do in Levin's place?
The words of Van Dorn, not a quarter of an hour old, spoke aloud in Levin's echoing consciousness: "Think nothing of me. Refer every act to some faithful man and go and do the same!"
Levin looked up, and the very clouds, now swollen dark in spite of starshine, seemed hurrying on Dover. The night-birds were crying "Mercy! mercy!" the lizards and tree-frogs seemed to cross each other's voices, piping "Time! time! time!"
"Huldy!" Levin whispered, and let the reins fall loose, and his animal darted through Camden town to the north.
He had gone by the small frame houses, the Quaker meeting, the stores, the outskirt residences, when suddenly his horse turned out to pass a large, dark object in the road ahead, and a horseman rode right across Levin's course, forcing his animal back on its haunches.