"Doan' ye be scaret now, honey! Bress you, 's a true frien': he'll get us shet ob dis yere swamp mighty sudd'n!"
And soothed by the dreamy motion, entirely fatigued, borne swiftly along in strong arms, under the low, waving boughs in the dim forest darkness, she was drowsed again with slumber, from which she woke only on being placed in the bottom of a skiff to turn over into a deeper dream than before. Flor nodded triumphantly to her companion, in the beginning, keeping pace beside him with short runs,—there could be no fear of babble about that of which one knew nothing,—and took her seat at last in the boat as he directed, while with a long pole he pushed out into the deeper water away from the shadow of the shore, and then went steering between the jags and gnarls, that, half protruding from the dark expanses, seemed the heads of strange and preternatural monsters. Now and then a current carried them; now and then their boatman sculled, now and then in shallower places poled along; sometimes he rested, and in the intervals took occasion to continue his missionary labor upon Flor,—his first object being to convince her she had a soul, and his second that in bondage every chance to save that soul alive was against her. Then he drew slight pictures of a different way of things, such as had solaced his own imagination, rude, but happy idyls of freedom: the small house, one's own; the red light in the window, a guiding star for weary feet at night coming home to comfort and smiles and cheer; no dark, haunting fear of a hand to reach between one and those loved dearest; no more branding like cattle, manhood and womanhood acknowledged, met with help and welcome and kind hands, cringing no more, but standing erect, drinking God's free sunshine, and growing nearer heaven. How much or how little of all his dream poor Sarp realized, if ever he reached the land of his desire at all, Heaven only knows. But Flor listened to him as if he recited some delightful fairy-tale,—charming indeed, but all as improbable as though one were telling her that black was white. Then, too, there was another dream of Sarp's,—the dream of a whole race loosening itself from the clinging clod. Flor got a glimmer of his meaning,—only a glimmer; it made her heart beat faster, but it was so grand she liked the other best.
So, creeping through narrow creeks, now they skirted the edges of the long, low, flat morass,—now wound round the giant trunk of a fallen tree that nearly bridged the pool whose dark mantle they severed,—now pushed the boat's head up into a wall of weeds, that bent back and let it through the deep cut flooded by the rain, where the wild growth shut off everything but the high hollow of a luminous sky, with ribbon-grasses and long prickly leaves brushing across their faces from either side, here and there a sudden dwarf palmetto bristling all its bayonets against the peaceful night, and all the way singular uncouth shapes of vegetation, like conjurations of magic, cutting themselves out with minuteness upon the vast clear background so darkly and weirdly that the voyagers seemed to be sliding along the shores of some new, strange under-world,—now they got out, and, wading ankle-deep in plashy bog, drew the boat and its slumberer heavily after them,—now went slowly along, afloat again, on the broad lagoons, which the moon, from the deep far heaven, shot into silver reaches, and, with the trees, a phantom company of shadows, weeping in their veils along the farther shore, with all the quaint outlines of darkness, the gauzy wings that flitted by, the sweet, wild scents across whose lingering current they drifted, the broad silence disturbed only by the lazy wash of a seldom ripple, made their progress, through heavy gloom and vivid light, an enchanted journey.
At length they lifted overhanging branches, and glided out upon a sheet of open water, a little lake fed by natural springs; and here, paddling over to the outlet, a tide took them down a swift brook to the river. Sarp stemmed this tide, made the opposite bank of the brook, and paused.
"Have you chosen, Lome?" said he. "Will you go back with me, and so on to the Happy Land of Freedom? Not that I'll have my own liberty till I've earned it,—till I've won a country by fighting for it. But I'll see you safe; and if I'm spared, one day I'll come to you. Will you go?"
Flor hung back a moment. "I'd like to go, Sarp, right well," said she, twisting up the corner of her little tatter of an apron. "But dar am Miss Emma, you see."
"We can leave her on the bank here. She'll be all right when de day breaks, and fin' the house herself. There's as good as she without a roof this night."
"She's neber been use' to it. She would n' know a step o' de way. Oh, no, Sarp! I 'longs to Miss Emma; she could n' do widout me. She'd jus' done cry her eyes out an' die,—'way here in de wood. No, Sarp, I mus' take her back. She's delicate, Miss Emma is. I'd like to go right well, Sarp,—'ta'n't much ob a 'sapp'intment,—I's use' to 'em,—I'd like for to go wid you."
Lingering, irresolute, she stood up in the swaying skiff, keeping her balance as if she were dancing; then, the motion, perhaps, throwing her back into her old identity, she sprang to the shore like a cat. Sarp laid Miss Emma beside her, and then shot away, back over all the desolate reaches and lonely shining pools; and Flor, with a little wail of despair, hid her face on the ground, that her weakened and bewildered little mistress might not see the flood of tears that wet the grass beneath it.
It was between two and three o'clock in the morning, when, chilled, draggled, and dripping wet, they reached the house. Lights were moving everywhere about it: no one had slept there that night. There was a great shout from high and low as the two forlorn little objects crept into the ray. Miss Emma was met with severe reproaches, afterwards with tears and embraces; and cordial drinks and hot flannels were made ready for her in a trice. As for Flor, she was warmed after another fashion,—being sent off for punishment; and, in spite of the implorations of Miss Emma and the interference of Miss Agatha, the order was executed. It was the first time she had ever received such reward of merit in form; and though it was a slight affair, after all, the hurt and wrong rankled for weeks, and, instead of the gay, dancing imp of former days, henceforth a silent, sullen shadow slipped about and haunted all the dark places of the house.