I gave him a moment.
"You'll do me the same favor, if I don't happen to turn up," I said; and we seized each other's hands. "You have the compass,—you know the way. There is nothing more, I believe, Ned?" I said, hastily, and looked into his eyes.
"I shall watch my chance as the wagons pass; there is nothing more," he replied; and we parted immediately.
It was as if we had agreed to toss pennies for the guillotine. I had no time to think further of him, for my own plans were maturing.
It was soon whispered about that we were to let the trains get ahead of us, since it was necessary that they should move faster; and the Rebel authorities, I presume, had decided to save their transportation, at the risk even of their captives. One or other, then, it seemed likely, would be taken. The Yankees were driving us before them, having reversed the fortunes of the day, and, perhaps, might liberate the prisoners who so impeded this retreat. We stood, I presume, for half an hour, drawn up in a compressed mass upon the skirt of the highway, whilst, startled by fear, a powerful task-master over teamsters, the late drowsy drivers urged forward their toil-worn trains. It was seasonable, but I believed that my time had not yet come. The deep shades encouraged me, but I awaited the hour that I had hit upon. I thought for a moment of the Adjutant, perhaps then ducking his head beneath the bushes, and watching, with his heart beating time, the heavy mass by degrees moving on. I trusted that the wheel of Fortune, whilst these other wheels were moving Rebelward, had turned in his favor.
At a little after seven we again fell into line, not having allowed all the teams to pass us; and as the same Fortune would have it, we left the woods behind us, and marched between open meadows. It had now grown quite dark. My face wore a look of anxiety as I noted the wide stretch of open field beyond me.
But there were as anxious faces as mine among the groups of Rebel officers who rode slowly along the lines. This was the chill season of perturbation to the hot-blooded gentlemen. Some communications were passing rapidly between the commander of our detachment and the commander of the army. Things were not working satisfactorily to either. Orderlies were dispatched to the front and to the rear, and the air-blasting bugle was sounded on ahead, as if to chide the teamsters. When we had marched up an ascent, and were on the brow of a low ridge, we were halted, and then turned into an open field. It was decided, apparently, that the rest of the train should pass us.
No doubt I should here have all the graces of a ready pen at my beck, honey-dipped, or Vulcan-forged, in accordance with my humor, whether sad or harsh, in making up the climax of my account; for at this spot the good writer would be most impressive in his language, and set the reader in a tremble. We waited for seventy minutes in this road-side field, the prisoners resignedly huddling together, with the callous guards making a circle about them. Let me enlarge upon our circumstances. The time, about eight o'clock; the atmosphere thick and murky; the sky overcast, promising a warm September night. I asked the Sergeant if it would rain, and said carelessly some other trifles. I feigned an excess of sleepiness. Our detachment lay some thirty yards from the highway, spread into a thin line of no evenness, running parallel with the road, which, in the gloom, our eyes could scarcely find. The exigencies of the service had proved the ruin of the fences; and only here and there in the vague darkness could one make out the black bunch of a shadowy tree. Just beyond us—for my Sergeant and myself stood at the rear extremity, the land's—end of this shoal of prisoners, outside of the ring of guards sparely posted, on the very top of the ridge which we had ascended—was a low clump of bushes, (perhaps neck-high,) squat and opaque, with much the appearance of a ball of garden boxwood. The hill, I thought, rolled away on either side,—taking some comfort to myself in the conjecture; and the inky leaf-globe, only a little more sombre than its background, could not be seen in a hasty glance. This clump, in its innocent blackness, would cover my purposed guilt; and I resolved to confide to it alone the secret crime of my attempted escape.
But there were calculations to be made, which I set about with the eagerness which the occasion required, watching my Sergeant very closely as my head ran over its prospectus. And, first, if he stood by my side, I revolved, I could not by any chance whisper my tale to the silent bushes; although, if, at the favorable moment, when the squad was ordered to march, he but stepped a feather's-throw in advance of me, the confession could be readily made. His presence would frustrate my plans. There was one expedient at my beck, but quite hazardous, by the adoption of which against odds I might compass his death and my freedom,—a thought which I dismissed on the instant, as it savored of murder and ingratitude. I must trust that he would give me his back, in spite of his sense of responsibility, for a breathing-space ere we "fell in." With his fellow watch-dogs my ruminations had nothing to do. The nearest of them, owing to their scarcity, (and they had grown trebly valuable this campaign, as they had grown rarer,) was not within twenty yards of me. My new world was scarce that distance in the rear. The moment of all moments, the crisis, the vision of a life-time, eddying through the brain in the flash of a powder-pan, and stamping red-hot impressions there, (which in some cases bleach men's hair-roots,) was finally upon me. My Sergeant turned from me, and I glided with tiger-tread to the bushes, and laid myself down.
I was, of course, between him and my new friends, and I pretended to sleep, so that, if he found me, he could scarce suppose that I meditated leaving him in so loose a manner; and, moreover, my being asleep would follow naturally upon my reiterated statement that I was sleepy. It would have been madness to have taken the other side, since, if there found, the case against me would have been clear. I depended, as is ever man's wont, upon mere shadows to do much for me where I was.