Louis Pacheco was one of the most popular members of the expedition. He was not only a good guide, but he was polite, obliging, and attentive to the wants of the officers. He certainly was a treasure, and they were fortunate to have secured his services. So the lieutenants said to one another.
For two days the command moved steadily forward, its one piece of light artillery and its one baggage wagon bumping heavily over the log-like roots of the saw-palmetto, and threatening to break down with each mile, but never doing so. They experienced no difficulty in crossing the dark, forest-shaded Withlacoochee; for Louis led them to the best ford on the whole river, and the officers agreed that they were making much better progress than could have been expected.
On the third night they had skirted the great Wahoo Swamp and were camped near its northern end. As this place was known to be a favorite Indian resort, the sentinels of that night were cautioned to be unusually vigilant. The corporal of the guard was instructed to inspect every post at least once an hour, and oftener than that towards morning, when an attack was supposed to be most imminent. As the officer of the day was equally on the alert, and visited the sentries many times during the night, the camp was deemed securely guarded.
All that day Louis, the guide, had been unusually silent. More than once he was observed to direct long, penetrating glances toward the dense forest growth of the great swamp, as though it held some peculiar fascination for him. It seemed as though he were conscious of the keen eyes, that, peering from its dark depths, watched so exultingly the march of the troops. It seemed as though he must see the lithe figures that, gliding silently from thicket to thicket, or from one mossy covert to another, so easily kept pace with the slow-moving column.
In waiting on the officers' mess that evening, Louis was so absent-minded that he made innumerable blunders, and drew forth more than one angry rebuke from those whom he served.
At last one of these remarked that, if the nigger was not more attentive to his duties, he would be apt to make an acquaintance with the whipping-post before long.
Then there flashed into the man's face for an instant the same look that Lieutenant Mudge had detected once before, and from that moment his demeanor changed. He was no longer absent-minded. He was no longer undecided. The time of his irresolution was passed.
That night he slept apart from any other occupant of the camp, beyond the line of tents and on the side nearest the swamp hammock. For hours after rolling himself in his blanket the man lay open-eyed and thinking. This was either the last night of his life or the last of his slavery, he knew not which. On the morrow he would be either dead or free. On the morrow, if he lived, he would learn the fate of the dear sister from whom he had heard no word since that terrible night on the Tomoka. On the morrow would be struck a blow for liberty that should be felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, and on the morrow his score against the white man would be wiped out. The account would be settled.
Louis had expected the attack to be made that day, and from each hammock or clump of timber they passed, had dreaded, and hoped to hear, the shrill war-whoop mingled with the crack of rifles. Now, he thought it might be made during the night or just at dawn. At all events, it must be made, if made at all, before the following sunset, for at that hour the command expected to reach Fort King.
As he lay thinking of these things, the querulous cry of a hawk suddenly broke the stillness of the night. It came from the swamp. Again it sounded, and this time with a slight difference of tone. The weary sentinels wondered for a moment at the strangeness of such a cry at that hour, and then dismissed it from their minds.