My second resolution, then, was, that he should carry my compass.
"I've been robbed of everything," he said.
"Take—my—compass—quick!" I returned, and pressed it into his hand.
He was not as good an astronomer as I. He looked a hurried remonstrance at me; but was obliged to hide it at once, and could not, I knew, waste any eloquence now. Although, moreover, he was a lover, Nature had never endowed him with the art of speaking through the eye. There were stronger reasons in favor of his escape than of mine,—worldly, if not spiritual,—and he suffered from a dangerous nervousness, in dwelling upon the magnitude of the issue before him, which was not in my way.
"It is now five," I said; "at seven, if in such woods as this, you must watch your chance and double."
"Which way?" he asked.
"Travel north-northeast, seven miles," I whispered.
Then, as if anxious to burst into a flood of eager words, he began,—
"But you"——
I looked at him fixedly, and moved off towards my Sergeant. That cursed tape before me now again made a twist in my brain.