"Certainly, sir. There is some marshy ground—I climbed a tree and looked it over yesterday—it won't stop the men, but may slow a horse."
"I see. Here is my note."
Penhallow tucked it in his belt and roused Josiah. "See to the girth," he said. "Is Hoodoo in good order?"
"Yes, sir. Where you going, Master John?"
"A little errand. Make haste."
"I know those little errands," said the black. "The good Lord care for him," he murmured, as the man he loved best was lost in the darkness.
He was aware of the great danger of his errand and was at once in that state of intensity of attention which sharpens every sense. He rode for the fourth of a mile between the long lines of infantry now astir here and there, and then an officer saw him through their picket-line. "Good luck to you!" he said. "I think the Rebs have no outlying pickets, but the woods are full of them."
Penhallow rode down a slight incline, and remembering that the marsh lower down might be difficult turned aside and came on a deep gully. The night was still dark, but a faint glow to eastward made haste desirable. The gully, as he rode beside it, flattened out, but at once he felt that his horse was in trouble on marshy ground. He dismounted and led him, but always the better footing lay nearer to the clump of trees. He made up his mind to ride for it. While on foot he had been as yet hardly visible. A shot from the salient group of trees decided him. He mounted and touched Hoodoo with the spur. The horse bounded forwards too quickly to sink in the boggy ground. Then a dozen shots told the rider he had been seen. Something like the feeling of a blow from a stick was felt as his left arm fell with gripped reins, and the right arm also dropped. Hoodoo pitched forward, rose with a gallant effort, and sinking down rolled to left upon the rider's leg.
The horse lay still. Penhallow's first sensation was astonishment; then he began to make efforts to get free. His arms were of no use. He tried to stir his horse with the spur of the free foot. It had no effect. Something must be wrong with him. He had himself a feeling of weakness he could not comprehend, aware that he had no wound of the trunk. His useless arms made all effort vain, and the left foot under the weight of the horse began to feel numb. The position struck him as past help until our people charged. He thought of Francis's axiom that there was nothing so entirely tragic as to be without some marginalia of humour. The lad smiled at his use of the word. His own situation appealed to him as ridiculous—a man with a horse on him waiting for an army to lift it off.
The left elbow began to recover from the early insensibility of shock and to be painful. Then in the dim light, as he lifted his head, he was aware of a Rebel soldier in front covering him with a revolver. Penhallow cried out with promptness, "I surrender—and I am shot through both arms."