"The guard will stand in the passage until you have finished with the prisoner. We shall await you in the porch."
"Now, Barney, I must be brief, and you must not lose a syllable I say. Here, sit on the cot, so that I may slip this bayonet under the blanket. You can work through this wall with that. You must do it to-night and to-morrow. Be ready Thursday at daylight. You will be met on the outside either by Dick or myself. We have the route all arranged, and friends in many places to lull suspicion."
"But I won't stir a foot without Jones. Do you know who he is?" Barney whispered, eying Jack curiously.
"No other than that he seems a very desperate devil-may-care fellow. Who is he?"
"An agent and crony of Boone's."
"Good God!"
"It's a long story I can't tell it now, but if your plan takes him in,
I'm ready, and will be on hand."
"I have seen him, and have given him better tools than I have brought you for the work."
"That's all right. I ask nothing better than the bayonet. The other fellows that got out of Libby didn't have nearly so good."
"You know how I am fixed here. I have grown tired of this sort of hostage life, and I am going North with you. So, Barney, I beg of you to be careful, for other lives than your own are at stake. I should be specially hateful to the authorities if I were retaken—for the whole Southern people clamor to have an example made of the assassins of the President, as they call you."