"I will stop for you at the door, Dick. You know the physician can not be kept waiting, so make your parting brief. Short shrift is the easiest in love and war."
"A doctor is as dreadful to me as a battle, Rosa. Kiss me as if I were going to the field," Dick whispered as Jack's back was turned. A minute later he had joined his mentor, and the two hurried through the square and down toward the river.
"I can't do it, Jack," Dick suddenly broke out, as they hurried through the dark street. "I must leave Rosa a line telling her my motive. What will she think of me sneaking away like this without a word? Now, you go on to Blake's cabin and change your clothes. I will get an old suit of Vint's. It will really make no difference in the time, and it will be safer for us to reach the prison separately than together."
"No, Dick, be a man. Every line you write will add to our peril. She will, of course, show it to her mother. Our night will be known in the morning. Mrs. Atterbury is too loyal to the Confederacy to conceal anything. You will thus give the authorities the very clew they need. No, Dick, you must be guided by me in this; besides, you can send Rosa letters through Vincent at headquarters as soon as we reach Washington."
"I can't help it. I know you are right, but I must do it. I will be with you in less than an hour. I'm off."
"Listen!—Good God, he's gone!" Jack ejaculated as Dick, taking advantage of a cross-street, shot off into the darkness. Jack halted. To call would be dangerous; to run after him excite comment, perhaps pursuit and discovery. There was nothing to be done but wait at the rendezvous. He would come back—Jack tried to make himself believe that he could depend on that. When, after a circuitous walk of half an hour, he reached the cabin of Blake, the colored agent of Mrs. Gannat, he found a note from his patroness warning him that the prison authorities had become alert. A rumor of a plot to escape had penetrated the War Department, and orders had been given to increase the precaution of the guards. The reception at the President's was a stroke of good fortune for the prisoners, as all the higher officials would be detained there until morning. Perhaps, in view of the chance, it would be better to anticipate the hour of flight, as, unfortunately, the horses that had been got together for the fugitives were in use for the Davis guests, and on such short notice others could not be provided without exciting suspicion or pointing to the agency by which the liberation had been brought about.
"Ah, if Dick were only here," Jack groaned, "we could go to the square and lead away enough staff or orderly horses to serve the purpose. The little wretch! It would serve him properly to leave him here mooning over his sweetheart." Then his heart took up a little tremor of protest. He sighed gently. He, too, had loitered when his heart pleaded. Why should Dick be firmer than he? It was after midnight when he reached the sheltering, broken, ground along the river. The provost prison fronted the water. It had been a tobacco warehouse, built long before, and hastily transformed into its present military purpose. It was set in what was called a "cut" in the heavy clay bank, thus bringing the lower windows below the level of the surrounding land. There were sentries stationed in front and rear, who walked at regular intervals from corner to corner. The sentinel on the high level to the rear could not see the ground along the wall, and it was this fact which Jack calculated upon to enable him to help the prisoners to remove the débris of the wall through which they were to presently emerge. The night was pitchy dark. This had been taken into consideration long before. Heavy clouds hung over the river, throwing the prison and its environs into still more security for Jack's purpose. He reconnoitred every available point, searched every corner of possible danger, and as the time passed he began to rage with impatience against Dick, whose delay was now periling the success of the enterprise.
It was twelve o'clock and after. He dared wait no longer. Dick must shift for himself. Perhaps he had lost his way. In any event it was safer to set the general prisoners free, as they were only carelessly guarded. Lamps glimmered fitfully in the guard-room, throwing fantastic banners of light almost to the water's edge. He made a final tour about the broken ground, but there was no sound or suspicion of Dick. He knew every inch of the ground. Dick and he had surveyed and resurveyed it for days. The coast was clear. No one was on guard at the vital point, but still he lingered, his breath coming and going painfully, as a break in the clouds cast a moving shape over the undulating ground. Should he give the boy another half-hour's grace? He makes a circuit in the direction Dick must approach by and waits. He will count a hundred very slowly, then wait no longer. He counts up to fifty, hears a coming step, and waits alertly. No—it passes on. He begins again—counts one hundred, two hundred. No sign. "Pah! it is madness to delay for him. The young poltroon has lost his resolution in his lovesick fever. Very likely he has been unable to run the risk of Rosa's anger—her mother's indignation—the possibility of never seeing the girl again." Well, he had given him ample grace. He had endangered his own and other lives to humor a boyish whim. Now he must act, and swiftly.
The plan was too far gone in execution to be changed. He must carry out the final measures alone. Now, one of these details required some one to slip down on the ground and crawl to the point between the windows where the prisoners were working and aid them to remove the thin, shell of brick. If it fell outward, the guard at the corner would hear the noise, and might come down to see what it was that made it. The removal of this wall released all confined in the main prison. These he saw stealing out in groups of ten or more. They had guides waiting on the bank of the river. Jack gave them final orders. The most difficult work was the getting out Jones and Barney, for they had special cells. Jack was to guard Jones's exit and Dick Barney's, but now all the work would devolve upon him. It was two o'clock, and he dared wait no longer. Raising himself from the low wall where he had been crouching, he started toward the corner of the prison farthest from the guard-room. At the wall of the building he dropped flat on his face and began to crawl forward, sheltered by the low ground that formed a sort of dry ditch about the basement of the prison. He had barely stretched himself at full length when a bright light was flashed on him from a deep doorway just beyond him, and a voice, mocking and triumphant, exclaimed.
"This is a bad place to swim, my friend! There ain't enough water to drown you, but if you stir you'll run against a bullet."