"Then you are going to release me, aint you?" cried Tom.
"I don't suppose such a thing was ever done before," said the corporal hesitatingly. "And I don't know what the boys will say to me when they hear of it; but I——"
"That don't make any difference, Mr. Soldier. You just tell me to go home, and I will keep the hounds off your trail."
"Well—git!" said the corporal. "You will find your sword and revolver back there in the grove where we hid them yesterday."
Tom lost no time in grasping the corporal's hand and shaking it with all his strength—a proceeding to which the boy in blue submitted with very bad grace. He felt more like giving his late captive a kick, and so did his comrades; but they let him shake their hands instead—all except Ben, who put his hands into his pockets and turned away when Tom approached him. Captain Randolph would have persisted in his efforts to take leave of him also, had he not been warned by a look from Rodney that he had better stop his nonsense and get away while the Federals were in the humor to let him go. Acting upon the hint, he turned away from Ben and disappeared in the direction of the fence.
"If I am any prophet that surly Yank will see the time when he'll wish he had not turned his back on me in that style," soliloquized Tom, when he found himself safe in the lane. "I'll square accounts with him and with Rodney and Dick at the same time. And Ned Griffin, too. I might have given those Yanks the slip last night, if he had been friendly enough to fall asleep as I wanted him to do; but he wouldn't, and now he will see how I will pay him for it."
Tom sped along the lane as if he had been furnished with wings, through the negro quarter and up to the door of the plantation house, where Ned's mother was waiting for him. She had moved her low rocking chair to that door, and had been waiting there ever since she saw Rodney Gray and his two companions disappear in the woods at the end of the lane; for she felt the keenest anxiety for Tom, and wondered what his mother would do if Rodney failed in his efforts to have him released.
"O Tom, I am so glad to see you," she exclaimed, as soon as the captain of the Home Guards came within speaking distance.
"I am a free man once more, Mrs. Griffin," replied Tom loftily, "and it is a fortunate thing for some people whose names I could mention. If I had been kept a prisoner, my Home Guards would have made sad work in this settlement. I'll thank you to lend me a horse. I want to reach home as soon as I can, in order to relieve my mother's anxiety."
And this was all he had to say to the woman who had done more than anybody else to keep him out of prison. By her kindness and generosity she had won the gratitude of Tom's captors and made it comparatively easy for Rodney to effect his release; and although Tom did not know this, he did know that Ned had done his best for him, and one would think he might have had a civil word for Ned's mother. Instead of that he hinted darkly at some things he knew about "some people whose names he could mention," and Mrs. Griffin knew that that was the same thing as a threat. She replied that she did not feel at liberty to lend Ned's saddle-horse without saying a word to him about it, but Tom could have a mule if he wanted it; and with the words she went into the house, leaving Captain Randolph to stand alone at the door until the mule was brought up.