The Iron Game Part 37

There was a sudden clash of steel as the group halted in a heap, and then a weary voice replied:

"We have no countersign. We should have been at our destination long before sundown, but were misdirected ten miles out of our course on the Manchester pike."

"Very well. Dismount and come forward one man at a time," Jack answered, briefly. This the spokesman did with some alacrity. As he came up, d.i.c.k took the precaution of getting between him and his three companions, and then Jack said: "I suppose you are all right; but my orders are to arrest all mounted men, detain their horses here in these, the provost stables," and Jack pointed to d.i.c.k's horse dimly outlined against the sky. "I will give you a receipt for him, and you can get him back in the morning when you state your case to the provost marshal.--Stephen," he turned to d.i.c.k, "take that horse and put him with the others." He then made out a receipt, handed it to the astonished trooper, and, directing him where to go, carried out the same short shrift with the other three.

The troopers were glad enough to be relieved of their beasts. This they did not attempt to deny, for they had seen a public-house in the street below, where they could procure much-needed refreshment, relieved as they now were from the necessity of reporting to their commander, whose whereabouts were far down the Rocett road.

"By George, Jack, what a, crafty plotter you are! Now we have a mount for the party, and I needn't take poor Warick's crack stallion."

"Yes; we've doubled the chances of escape by this little stratagem; but we have lost time. Come. Have you tied the horses?"

"Yes. Lead on."

Over the turfy hillside, now moist and sticky with the heavy dew, they stole, half crouching, half crawling, until they were on a level with the prison bas.e.m.e.nt. The sentry in front was no longer pacing his beat, and there was no sign of the man in the rear. In a few minutes the two crawling figures were at the preconcerted places in the wall. In response to their light taps, a square of brick-work large enough to leave a s.p.a.ce for a man to crawl through crumbled upon Jack and d.i.c.k, who held their bodies closely pressed against the _debris_ to prevent too loud a noise. There was no time to wait probabilities of discovery, and an instant later Barney and Jones emerged, panting and half smothered.

"I thought it was all up with me hopes, as Glory McNab said when her sweetheart ran away with the cobbler's daughter." Barney whispered, hugging Jack rapturously.

"Sh--! Down on your stomachs. Move that way until you see me rise.

Come." And Jack squirmed ahead as if he had been accustomed to the locomotion of snakes all his life. In ten minutes they were in the improvised stables. d.i.c.k had taken the precaution to place the horses where they could feed on a heap of fodder stacked in the yard, and when they mounted the beasts appeared refreshed as well as rested. d.i.c.k loosing Warick's horse so that he might make his way back to his master, the fugitives rode cautiously out of the lane, into the open fields, and, though it was not their shortest way, pushed along the river road to mislead pursuit. Jack's stratagem had resulted in better luck even than the possession of the horses. It not only secured a mount for the four, but, what was equally and perhaps, in view of unforeseen contingencies, more important disguises for the two prisoners.

They found an extra coat strapped to each saddle, and with these Barney and Jones were easily transformed into something like Confederate soldiers. Both Jack and Jones knew every inch of the suburbs, having made the topography a study. They struck for the less traveled thoroughfares until they reached the northeastern limits, then following the old Cold Harbor road they pushed decisively toward the Williamsburg pike. But, instead of following it, they traversed on by lanes and bridle-paths during the day. This was to divide pursuit, as the larger party had taken the river route where Butler's troops were waiting in boats for them. The saddle-bags proved a windfall, for in them were orders to proceed to Yorktown and report to General Magruder. With these Jack felt no difficulty in pa.s.sing several awkward points, where there was no escaping the cavalry patrols, owing to miles of swamp and impenetrable forest.

They kept clear, however, of such places as the telegraph reached, though at one point they found a post in a great state of excitement over news brought from a neighboring wire, announcing the escape of two prisoners who had been traced to the York road. But with such papers as Jack presented and the number of the party double that described in the dispatch, the adventurers easily evaded suspicion. The great danger, however, was in quitting the Confederate lines to pa.s.s into Butler's.

They chose the night for this, as the camp-fires would warn them of the vicinity of outposts, Union or rebel. They had purposely avoided highways and habitations, and, as a result, were limited in food to such corn-cribs as they found far from human abodes, or the autumn aftermath of vegetables sometimes found in the shadow of the woods. All were good shots, however, and a fat rabbit and partridge were cooked by d.i.c.k with such address, that the party were eager to take more time in halting since they need not starve, no matter how long the journey lasted.

Jack, by tacit consent, was considered commander of the squad, Barney remarking humorously that they would not ask to see his commission until they were in a country where a t.i.tle meant authority. The commander ordered his small army very judiciously. They were to ride as far apart as the roads or woods or natural obstructions would admit. They thus moved forward in the shape of a triangle, the apex to the rear.

Exchanges of position were made every six hours. They were at the end of the second day, toward sunset, approaching what they supposed was Warrick Creek, nearly half-way to Fort Monroe, when they suddenly emerged on an open plateau from which they could see a mile or two before them a tranquil waste of crimson water.

"Why, this can't be the creek!" exclaimed Jones, excitedly. "The creek isn't half a mile at its broadest."

"What can it be?" Jack asked, who had been the right wing to Jones's left. "It's certainly not the James, for the sun is setting at our back!"

"Blest if I can tell. It looks very much like the Chesapeake, only the Chesapeake is wider."

By this time Barney and d.i.c.k had ridden up, and began to admire the expanse of water spreading from the land before them to a green wilderness in the distance.

"I'm afraid we are in a fix," Jones said, resignedly. "If I'm not very much mistaken, the red line yonder, that looks like a roadway, is a breastwork, and behind that what looks like a plowed field is earthworks. My boys, we are before Yorktown and farther from our lines than we were yesterday. The n.i.g.g.e.r that showed us the way in the woods was either ignorant or deceiving us. We are now inside the outposts of the rebels, and we shall have to crawl on our hands and knees to escape them."

"I don't see what better off we'll be on our hands and knees than we are in our saddles," Barney cried, guilelessly. "Sure we can go faster on the bastes than we can on our hands, and, as for me knees, 'tis only in prayer that I ever use them."

"Not in love, Barney?" d.i.c.k asked, innocently.

"No, me darlin'. The gurls I love think more of me arms than me knees, and I do all of me pleadin' with me lips."

"I should think they could hold their own," Jones remarked, dryly.

"Indeed, they can that, and a good deal more, as me best gurl'll tell you if she'll tell the truth, and no fear of her doing that, I'll go bail."

"Fie! Barney, if she won't tell the truth you should have none of her,"

d.i.c.k cried in stage tones.

"Indeed, it's little I have of her, for she's that set on Teddy Redmund that she leaves me to her mother, when Teddy comes to the porch of an evening."

"Well, friends, your loves are, no doubt, adorable, and it is a pleasant thing to talk over, but just now what we want is a way out of this trap"; and Jack, saying this, slipped from his horse and led him into the shelter of a thick growth of scrub-pines. The rest followed his example. They tied their animals and held a council of war. It was resolved that Jack and Jones should make a reconnaissance to find out the route toward the Warrick; that d.i.c.k and Barney should secrete and guard the horses and do what they could to obtain some food. This decision was barely agreed upon, when the shrill call of a bugle sounded almost among the refugees, and they sprang to their horses, waiting in silence the next demonstration. Other bugles sounded farther away; a great cloud of dust arose in the direction of the water, and then Jack whispered:

"Remain here. I will climb one of these trees and see what it means."

He was in the leafy boughs of a spreading pine in a few minutes, and could descry a broad plain, with tents scattered here and there; still farther on the broad uplands frame buildings with a red and white flag floating to the wind could be seen. Back of all this he could make out a broad expanse of water and a few ungainly craft, lazily moving to the current in the Yorktown roadstead.

"Yes. this certainly must be Yorktown. Why have they such a force here?

No one is threatening it," Jack murmured, his eyes arrested by a long line of cavalry in undress, leading their horses up a circuitous and hitherto concealed road to the plateau. "Ha! they go down there for water. Let me see. That is to the southeastward; that is our point of direction. I think we may venture to push on now." He hastily descended from his survey, and making known what he had seen, added: "We must proceed with the greatest caution. There is no time to think of food until we get away from this dangerous neighborhood. We must keep well spread out, and move only over turfy ground or in the deep shade of the wood. In case of disaster, the cry of the night owl, as agreed upon, will be a warning."

The four had practiced the melancholy cry of the owl, as heard in the Southern woods both day and night, and they could all imitate it sufficiently well to pa.s.s muster if the hearer were not on guard against the trick, and yet so clever an imitation that none of the four could mistake it. So soon as they quit the plateau, seeking a way east by south, they plunged immediately into a dreary swamp, where progress was slow and difficult. The mosquitoes beset them in swarms, plaguing even the poor animals with their l.u.s.ty sting. Hour after hour, until the woods became a hideous chaos of darkness and unseemly sounds, the four panting fugitives pushed on, fainting with hunger, worn out by the incessant battle with the corded foliage, the dense marshes, and quagmires through which their path to safety lay. But at midnight Jones gasped and gave up the fight.

"Go on; leave me here. I am of no use at best. I should only be a drag on you. Perhaps you may find some darkey and send him back to give me a mouthful to eat. That would pick me up; nothing else can."

The four gathered together for counsel. The horses, faring better than their masters, for they found abundance to allay hunger in the lush, dank gra.s.s of the mora.s.s, were corralled in a clump of white ash, and the jaded men, groping about, clambered upon the gnarled roots of the trees to catch breath. They had been battling steadily for five hours against all the forces of Nature. Their clothes were torn, their flesh abraded, their strength exhausted. They could have slept, but the ground offered no place, for wherever the foot rested an instant the weight of the body pushed it down into the oozy soil until water gushed in over the shoe-tops. Jones had found the struggle hardest because he had not the youth of the others nor their light frames. The striplings were spared many of his hardships and were still able to endure the ordeal, if the end were sure relief. Jack struck a match, and with this lighted a pine knot. He surveyed the gloomy brake carefully, and at last, finding a mound where a thick growth of underbrush gave a.s.surance of less treacherous soil, he called to Barney to aid him. The little hillock was made into a couch by means of the saddles, and the groaning veteran carefully laid upon the by no means uncomfortable refuge. As Jack held the light above him, Jones's eyes closed and he sank into a lethargic sleep.

"He will be in a high fever when he awakes," Jack said, looking at Barney. "We must see that he has food, or the fever will be his death.

Here is what I propose: you and I shall sally out from here, blazing the path as we go. We must find some sign of life within a circuit of five miles. That will take us say till daylight to go and come. We will leave d.i.c.k here to guard Jones, and if we do not return by noon to-morrow d.i.c.k will know that he must shift for himself."

"You command, Jack dear. What you say I'll do, as Molly Meginniss said to the priest when he told her to repent of her sins."

"d.i.c.k, my boy, do you think you are equal to a vigil? You must stay here with Jones. If he wakes and wants water, press the moisture of these leaves to his lips, it's sa.s.safras; and, stay--here is a sort of plantain, filled with little globules of dew; pour these into his mouth, and at a pinch give him a handful from the pool. In case of great danger fire two shots, but if any one should come toward you or discover you it will be better to surrender. In that event, you can make up a story to suit the case, which may enable you to finally escape. This man's life is in your hands. Remember that it is as glorious a deed as fighting in line. Keep up a stout heart. We will soon be back, or you may take it for granted all is up with us."

"Ah! Jack! Jack! To start so well and end so miserably, I can't bear it--I can't stay here. You stay and let me go."

"No, d.i.c.k, it can't be; you are already so worn out that we should have been obliged to halt for you if Jones hadn't broken down. It can't be that you would think of leaving a fellow-soldier in such extremity as this, d.i.c.k? I know you better."

"But I don't know him. I have no interest in him. With you I'll face any danger--I'll die without a word; but to stay here in this awful place, with the black pools of water, like great dead eyes, glaring in their hideous light" (the pine-torch flaring in the wind filled the glade with vast ogreish shadows, as the cl.u.s.tering bushes were swayed in the night air) "and these hideous night-cries--O Jack, I can't--I can't--I must go!"

"But the horses and the need of some one that can come back in case anything befalls me. I am disappointed in you, d.i.c.k. I am shocked; you are not the man of courage and honor I thought you."

"O my G.o.d, go--go--I will stay; but, Jack, if you find me dead, tell--tell--Rosa--that--that--" He gasped and sank down sobbing against the gnarled tree that crossed the mound above Jones's head.

"I will tell Rosa that you were the man she believed you were when the trial came," and with this Jack and Barney, with a flaming torch, set forward hastily through the fantastic curtain of foliage and night, which shut in the glimmering vista of specters, dark, sinister, and menacing.

CHAPTER XXV

PHANTASMAGORIA.

To say that night is a time of terror is a commonplace. Night is not terrible of itself. It is like the ocean--peace and repose if there be no storm. But of all terrors there are none, outside a guilty mind, so benumbing as night in the unknown. It does not lessen the horror of darkness that fear makes use of the imagination for its agencies. Fancy, intuition, and the train that follows the inner vision, these make of night a phantasmagoria, compared to which Milton's inferno is a place of comparative repose.

If you would realize the wondrous necromancy of the sun, pa.s.s a night in some primeval forest, untouched by the hand of man. Until he stands in the awful silence of the midnight wood, or upon some vast waste of nature, no man can figure to himself the varied shapes the mind can give to terrors based upon the mysterious noises of nature, and the goblin motions of inanimate things. The lover thinking of his la.s.s welcomes the night and the rapturous walks among well-known scenes and kindly objects. With glimmering lamps in the foliage and the not distant sounds of daily life, even the woods have nothing fearful to the meditative or the distraught. But in flight, with fear as a garment that can not be laid aside, the somber forms of the forest are more terrible than an army with banners, as a haunted house is a more unnerving dread than burglars or any form of night marauders. It was at night that the mutinous sailors of Columbus broke into decisive revolt; it was at night that the iron band of Cortes lost heart, and were routed on the lakes of Mexico; it was at night that the resolution of Brutus failed before the disaster at Philippi.