The words were “fellow-prisoner;” and they made me stop short, for I felt that I had really and providentially hit upon the right place after all, and that there could be only one man likely to be a fellow-prisoner, and that—my poor father.
It was impossible to flee farther, I felt, and leave him whom I had come to seek behind.
Then common sense stepped in and made me know that it was folly to stay, while Jimmy supplemented these thoughts by saying:
“Black fellow come along fas. Mass Joe no gun, no powder pop, no chopper, no knife, no fight works ’tall.”
“Where is he?” I said excitedly, as I held the arm of our guide.
“Blacks—coming after us.”
He talked on rapidly in the savage tongue and I uttered a groan of despair.
“What um say, Mass Joe?” whispered Jimmy excitedly. “Talk, talk, poll parrot can’t say know what um say. Come along run way fas. Fight nunner time o,” he added. “Black fellow come along.”
He caught my arm, and, following our guide, we hurried on through the darkness, which was so dense that if it had not been for the wonderful eyesight of my black companion—a faculty which seemed to have been acquired or shared by our guide—I should have struck full against the trunk of some tree. As it was, I met with a few unpleasant blows on arm or shoulder, though the excitement of our flight was too great for me to heed them then.
I was in despair, and torn by conflicting emotions: joy at escaping and at having reached the goal I had set up, misery at having to leave it behind just when I had found the light. It might have been foolish, seeing how much better I could serve him by being free, but I felt ready to hurry back and share my father’s captivity, for I felt assured that it must be he of whom our guide spoke.