“There must have been fifty or more of them who came to the bayou to get a drink; but they were not within ten feet of the dead-line.”
“And what did you do?”
“I? I didn’t do anything.”
“Well, the next time that thing happens, I would make a little demonstration, if I were in your place,” said Bowen. “You can act as if you were going to shoot, but of course you needn’t unless you have to.”
“Do you want me to understand that I will be reported if I don’t?”
“That’s what I mean. I have had a talk with some of these Home Guards this morning, and have found out what sort of chaps they are. If you are too easy with the prisoners you’ll get them down on you, and then they’ll tell on you whether you do anything wrong or not. And you want to keep out of the clutches of the captain, for he’s a heathen.”
Marcy afterward had occasion to remember this warning.
CHAPTER XV.
ON ACCOUNT OF THE DEAD-LINE.
The life that Marcy Gray led during the next three weeks can be compared to nothing but a nightmare. His duties were not heavy, but the trouble was that when he tried to go to sleep he saw the inside of the prison pen as plainly as he did while he was standing in his box. He saw long lines of dead men carried out, too, and tumbled unceremoniously into the trenches outside the stockade, where they were left without a head-board to show who they were or where they came from. All this while he was losing flesh and strength as well as courage, and Bowen declared that, if they did not “make a break” very soon, Marcy would have to go into the hospital.
“I feel as though I ought to go there now,” said the latter wearily. “To tell the honest truth, I haven’t pluck enough to make a break for liberty; we are too closely watched. When I am on post after dark, I notice that an officer or a corporal comes around every hour to see if the guard is all right.”