"Can you swim, massa?" he quietly asked.
"Yes, like an eel."
"Wal, den, we'd better gwo on. De hoss'll swim. But, massa, you might take off your boots and overcoat, and be ready for a spring ef he gwo down."
I did as he directed, while he let down the apron and top of the wagon, and fastened the reins loosely to the dash-board, saying as he did so, "You must allers gib a hoss his head when he swim, massa; if you rein him, he gwo down, shore." Then, undoing a portion of the harness, to give the horse the free use of his legs, he shouted, "Gee up, ole Gray," and we started.
The noble animal stepped off slowly and cautiously, as if fully aware of the danger of the passage, but had proceeded only about fifty yards when he lost his footing, and plunged us into an entirely new and decidedly cold hip-bath. "Now's de time, ole Gray," "show your broughten up, ole boy," "let de gemman see you swim, ole feller," and similar remarks proceeded rapidly from the darky, who all the time avoided touching the reins.
It may have been one minute, it may have been five minutes—I took "no note of time"—before the horse again struck bottom, and halted from sheer exhaustion, the water still almost level with his back, and the opposite bank too far-off to be seen through the darkness. After a short rest, he again "breasted the waters," and in a few moments landed us on the shore; not, unfortunately, in the road, but in the midst of the pine-trees, there so entangled with under-growth, that not even a man, much less a horse, could make his way through them. Wet to the skin, and shivering with the cold, we had no time to lose "in gittin' out of dat," if we would avoid greater dangers than those we had escaped. So, springing from the wagon, the darky waded up the stream, near its bank, to reconnoitre. Returning in a few minutes, he reported that we were about a hundred yards below the road. We had been carried that far down stream by the strength of the current. Our only course was to follow the "run" up along its bank; this we did, and in a short time had the satisfaction of striking the high road. Arranging the harness, we were soon under way again, the horse bounding along as if he felt the necessity of vigorous exercise to restore his chilled circulation. We afterward learned that it was not the Waccamaw we had crossed, but the second "run" our native friend had told us of, and that the water in the middle of its stream was fifteen feet deep!
Half-dead with cold and wet, we hurried on, but still no welcome light beckoned us to a human habitation. The darkness grew denser till we could not even distinguish the road, much less our horse's nose, which we had been directed to follow. Inwardly cursing the folly which brought me into such a wilderness, I said to the darky:
"Scip, I'm sorry I took you on such a trip as this."
"Oh! neber mind me, massa; I ruther like de dark night and de storm."
"Like the night and the storm! why so?"