“Halt, dar!”
My unseen Protector again aided me, and I once more assumed the rebel tone and manner. I replied, with as much offended dignity as my beating heart would allow:
“Halt, whar?”
“Who are you, sah?”
“Have you been here so long, sir, and don’t know me yet? What’s this mean, sir? Don’t you understand your business, sir?”
“O, yes, sah, I know you, now; you ’long to that thar battallin over thar. Go on, sah!”
Soon after this, I succeeded in reaching our appointed place of meeting, but believing that the confusion of the guards in capturing the frightened horse had prevented Collins from attempting to follow, I went down to the fence alone. Five minutes later, I heard my comrade giving the signal at the outer rendezvous, to which I instantly responded, and in a very few minutes we were both outside the picket-fence, on the dismal banks of the Ocmulgee river.
We traveled fifteen miles before sunrise, and, just at daylight, crossed the river on a railroad bridge, leaving it between us and our enemies. It was a glorious summer morning. The birds, all beautiful and free, were chirping their matin praises. The fields and forests were fragrant with the blessed baptism of dews, and glittered in rare brilliance before the rising sun. All nature was clad in robes of royalty, and voiced to sweet anthems of rejoicing. But we were weary wanderers, homeless and hated, fallen among thieves and robbers in the midst of our native land. As the daylight grew stronger, we resolved to secrete ourselves in the thicket among the croaking frogs, and lie low in the dense undergrowth among the reptiles of the cane-brake. We were destitute of provisions. In our haversacks were the matches, salt, pepper and fish-hooks. We kindled a small fire, and burnt our papers. We did this regretfully, for we had some valuable notes and memoranda among them, but we chose to suffer their positive loss, rather than risk the danger of a recapture with them still in our possession. It was a sad sacrifice, in a solitary sanctuary, on a strange altar. Yet our safety demanded it, and it was done.
Our situation was now both desolate and dangerous. We were in the midst of a vast cane-brake, the extent and surroundings of which were altogether unknown to us. The tall, straight cane-growths, like steady fingers, pointed upward to a land of liberty on high, and we knew a Present Guide thither, but we were without chart or compass in this lower wilderness.