Involuntarily the girl, oppressed by the loneliness which had taken on a certain weird quality, walked closer to Prescott, and he could faintly hear her breathing as she fled with him, step for step.
"The Baltimore road lies there," he said, "and yonder are earthworks. See! Where the faint light is twinkling! that low line is what we have to pass."
They heard the creaking of wagons and the sound of voices as of men speaking to horses, and stopped to listen. Then they beheld lights nearer by on the left.
"Stay here a moment and I'll see what it is," said Prescott.
"Oh, don't leave me!" she cried with a sudden tremour.
"It is only for a moment," he replied, glad to hear that sudden tremour in her voice.
Turning aside he found close at hand an obscure tavern, and beside it at least a dozen wagons, the horses hitched as if ready for a journey. He guessed immediately that these were the wagons of farmers who had been selling provisions in the city. The owners were inside taking something to warm them up for the home journey and the horses outside were stamping their feet with the same purpose.
"Not likely to bother us," was Prescott's unspoken comment as he returned to the girl who stood motionless in the snow awaiting him. "It is nothing," he said. "We must go forward now, watch our chance and slip through the earthworks."
She did not speak, but went on with him, showing an infinite trust that appealed to every fiber of his being. The chill of the wintry night had been driven away by vigourous exercise, but its tonic effect remained with both, and now their courage began to rise as they approached the first barrier. It seemed to them that they could not fail on such a night.
"There is an interval yonder between two of the earthworks," said Prescott. "I'm sure we can pass them."