This much in substance Nathan had suggested to his comrade; but Evan failed to see any possibility that good might be effected so far as the friends of the cause were concerned.
"Even though Mrs. Sarah Dillard can be told all that we know, it is not likely she will have an opportunity of sending a messenger from the plantation. Ephraim Sowers knows full well where the captain may be found, and will warn Major Ferguson against permitting any person to leave the place."
"If Dicey Langston, a girl only sixteen years old, could baffle Cunningham's band, who gave themselves the name of the Bloody Scouts, as she did on that night when alone she crossed the Ennoree, swollen though the waters were, what may Sarah Dillard do when she knows her husband's life hangs in the balance?"
"It is not a question of what she would do, but of what she can," Evan replied gloomily. "Thanks to Ephraim Sowers, the commander of this force will know only too well how eager she must be to send news ahead of his whereabouts, and will take precautions accordingly."
"That is as may be. We can at least hope for the best," Nathan replied bravely, and then word was given for the troop to resume the march.
During the afternoon the British soldiery came upon two plantations, the buildings of which they utterly wrecked, shooting from sheer wantonness the live stock that could not be run down without too much labor, and seeming eager in every way to mark their trail by destruction.
It was an hour before sunset when the boys saw in the distance the buildings of the Dillard plantation, and knew that the time was near at hand when, if ever, they must get word to that little band whose lives were in such deadly peril.
Ephraim Sowers was nowhere to be seen; but slight comfort could be derived from this fact, for it seemed reasonable to suppose he was making himself obnoxious in the dwelling of those people whom he had once claimed as his friends, but was now visiting as their bitterest enemy.
"Keep your wits about you for the first opportunity to gain speech with Sarah Dillard," Nathan whispered to his comrade, and Evan sighed as he nodded in reply, for it seemed to him there was little chance they would be permitted to hold a conversation with any acquaintance, because of the probable fact that Ephraim Sowers would guard against such a proceeding.
The prisoners were marched directly up to the dwelling, and there, with the windows and doors flung wide open, they had a full view of the entire interior, but their enemy was nowhere to be seen.