“You can and you must. Sleep and eat all you can, hold your thoughts under control, and so keep up your strength. Come here and lie down.”
Marcy knew that Bowen’s advice was good, but it was hard to follow it. Reluctantly he stretched himself upon the man’s blanket,—there was no room on the floor for him to spread his own,—pulled his valise under his head for a pillow, and listened while Bowen told of some exciting and amusing incidents that had fallen under his observation while he was trying to reach the Union lines. On three occasions, he said, he had acted as guide to small parties of escaped Federals who were slowly working their way out of Dixie, but somehow he never could induce them to remain very long in his company.
“They had the impudence to tell me that I didn’t know anything about the geography of my own State,” said Bowen in an injured tone.
“That’s what I think myself,” replied Marcy. “Whatever put it into your head to come away up here to North Carolina, when you might have taken a short cut to the coast?”
“There you go just like the rest of them,” said Bowen. “It shows how much you know of the situation down South. The Confederacy is like an empty egg-shell. There’s nothing on the inside—no soldiers to be afraid of—nothing but niggers, who are only too glad to feed and shelter a Union man. You’re safe while you stay on the inside, but the minute you try to get out is when the danger begins, for there’s the shell in the shape of the armies by which the Confederacy is surrounded. There was no need of my being captured, and that’s what provokes me. When I caught sight of the Union flag in Plymouth I thought I was safe and so, instead of keeping to the woods, I came out and followed the road; and here I am. If I had held to the course that I followed all through my long journey, I’d have been among the boys in blue now instead of being shut up in jail.”
“Did old Wilkins conscript you?”
“The minute I struck the jail. He took my descriptive list, robbed me of the little money I had left, and told me I could make up my mind to fight until the Confederates gained their independence.”
“You’ll die of old age before that day comes,” said Marcy.
“That’s what I think, and it’s what more than half the people down South think. There are men and boys in the Confederate army who are as strong for the Union as Abe Lincoln is; but if they said so, or if they shirked their duty, they would be shot before they saw another sun rise. Now, if they put you and me on guard duty at one of their prison pens we’ll not stay there any longer than we feel like it.”
Bowen continued to whisper in this encouraging strain until long after the rest of the prisoners were wrapped in slumber; and finally Marcy’s eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep himself.