"What in the name of all that's good brings you out on this road on such a dark night, disturbing our sleep?"

He laughed, as if he thought it a good joke on himself; it was only a trifling little laugh, but it gave me some encouragement.

"Why, I have been hunting the house where a sick friend of mine was left after the battle, and, being unable to find him, I went to sleep in a barn, but I couldn't stand that sort of a rest, so I got out and started back home, and I _guess_ I'm lost."

"I _guess_ you are."

The use of this word nearly gave me away.

"What regiment was your friend in?"

"I don't know for sure, but think it's a Maryland company. I knew him in Texas, but we were both from Maryland, and maybe he went with some Texas acquaintances."

"Well, my friend, this is rather a singular place and time to be found hunting a sick friend."

"Yes, I know; but, as I tell you, I am lost in the darkness, and must have taken the wrong road when I left the barn. I will show you my passes."

"Oh, you have passes, have you? Come into the house and we will make a light; we can't make a light out here because we are right on the line."

As we turned to leave, the sentry or guard who had halted me whispered or spoke in a low tone to the officer. I suspected that he was telling him that I had expressed my relief at seeing his blue uniform. The officer merely nodded assent, as he invited me to walk alongside of him into the house.

I took occasion to say to him that when I saw the blue coat I was sure that I had been caught by a Yankee soldier, and expressed my great pleasure at having met such courteous Southern gentlemen.

"Well, you came very near going into the Yankees' hands; why their cavalry come out here every day, and were away inside of this point to-day, but they generally go back at night, and we come out to spend the night on the road."

Then stopping in his walk he turned and, after peering through the trees, he pointed to a couple of dimly flickering lights and said: "Those lights are in Georgetown College."

Great God! I was so near and yet so far; and as I looked at the lights I was almost overcome with emotion to think that I had so nearly succeeded and was now a prisoner in the sight of home and friends; that I had, in fact, passed the last picket and had been halted from the rear, but realizing that I must, under the trying circumstances, keep a stiff upper lip, I might yet get free.

My surprise at hearing the lights pointed out as Georgetown College was so great that I must have expressed in some way my feelings, as the officer looked at me quizzically. I ventured to express myself in some way about being so near the Yankees, as I thought I was nearer Fairfax, in a manner which probably implied a doubt as to the lights being so close at Georgetown, when he spoke up:

"I know they are, because, you see, I was a demonstrator of anatomy and a tutor at that college, and we all know about it." And as a further proof of his assertion he incidentally observed: "If you are around this country in daylight you can see the Capitol from some elevated points."

In the silence and gloom that had settled down over me, like a cold, heavy, wet blanket, we walked together to the house.

Along the fence and hitched to the posts were several horses, already saddled and bridled for sudden use, while in the porch of the house were stretched in sleep the forms of two or three men in gray uniform, with their belts and spurs buckled on.

Inside the house a tallow candle was found, and by its dim light, the Confederate officer scanned my pass, and then, turning, gave me a most searching look by the light of the candle, as he said: "This pass is all right for the inside of our lines."

"Oh," said I quickly, "I don't want any pass anywhere else. I'm glad that I found you here, or I'd have gone into the Yankees' hands, sure."

While talking to the sentry, when waiting for the officer to come up to us, I had not thought it necessary to attempt to destroy or "lose" the papers in my old hat, as I supposed him to be the Union picket; and, since the officer had joined us, there had been no opportunity to do anything with him, without exciting suspicion, which was the one thing to be avoided at that time.

When we went into the house I had, of course, taken off my hat, and as I sat there under the scrutiny of that fellow's black eyes and sharp cross-examination, I held my hat in my hand, and everytime my fingers would touch or feel the presence of the paper in the hat I was conscious of a little flush of guilt and apprehension, which happily the tallow candle did not expose.

The officer, at my request, hospitably accepted the suggestion that I be permitted to stay there under their protection until daylight, when I could return to "our army," supplementing the arrangement by the kind observation:

"We will see you back safely."

Then rousing one of the sleeping soldiers, whom he called aside and gave some private directions as to my care and keeping, he courteously told me to make myself comfortable, and apologized for the accommodations.

I was a prisoner, and I knew full well that to be escorted back through the Rebel armies with this officer's report that I had been "found at their outposts going in the direction of the enemy," would excite a suspicion that would be sure to set on foot a closer examination, and this would result in my certain detection; because the first thing they would do would be to show my forged endorsement from General Beauregard's Chief-of-Staff for his further endorsement; and I could not, of course, stand an examination into my immediate antecedents, nor explain my statements, and this would also discover my operations in the telegraph office.

As I lay down alongside of the armed Rebel trooper for a rest, I resolved that, come what might, I should not go back a prisoner--that it would be preferable to be shot trying to escape rather than to be hanged as a spy.

CHAPTER XII.

ANOTHER ESCAPE, ETC.

As I lay me down to sleep on the front porch of the little old house, close beside an armed Rebel soldier, and not very distant from two other aroused troopers, I realized in a manner that I can not describe that I was not only a prisoner, but that I was most likely suspected of being a spy who had been captured in the very act of escaping from their own into their enemy's lines. I felt all the worse from the reflection that my unfortunate predicament resulted solely from a want of caution or discretion; that had I been content to suffer more patiently the delays and annoyances which were necessarily to be encountered while tramping in the darkness through the fields and briar bushes in avoiding the highways, I might have passed the danger line a moment later, to have reached our own lines safely enough a little later in the night. I had actually passed all the Rebel pickets, both of infantry and cavalry. I learned from the talk of the men into whose hands I had run myself, that they were merely a detached scouting party, who were at that particular point at night, as I surmised, to receive communications from their friends who were inside our lines during the daytime.

This arrangement was for the accommodation and convenience of _their_ spies in our army--enabling them to come out to this rendezvous under cover of the night to deliver their mail or supply information.

I gathered these facts from the big fellow who had me in charge, who, it was courteously observed by the officer, "would make me as comfortable as possible," after the manner of a jailor the night before a hanging.

The outpost was not only a branch postoffice for the Rebel couriers, but there was a previously-arranged system of signals with some one at the college, by which any important advances or other movement of our forces could have been quickly announced, and that would have been well understood by the party stationed there to observe this.

As I have said, I fully determined in my own mind not to go back to the Rebel headquarters as a suspected spy. The forged endorsement, or request for a pass, which I had voluntarily relinquished to the Rebel officer, while it seemed to allay any suspicions that might have been aroused in his mind, had the opposite effect with me.

It was the one little piece of paper out of my hands that was sure to be closely scrutinized by the officers. It would supply documentary evidence not only of my guilt as a spy, but of forging a Rebel General's endorsement.

I had not yet seen any chance to make away with the other dreadful death warrant, in the form of the stolen telegram that was concealed under the lining of my hat.

While passing into the house from the road I might have thrown my hat down, but I knew they would hunt it up for me, and, in handling it, be sure to discover the concealed papers. I could not get them out of the hat, even in the dark, without attracting attention that might result in an exposure; and, besides all this, I knew full well that any pieces of white paper, if torn into ever so small fragments and scattered on the ground, would be sure to attract notice and be gathered up at daylight.

I was suspected, and, as such, every action and movement was being closely scrutinized and noted. My only hope was to delay the exposure that must eventually come; that I must keep still and trust to luck for escape; or, if an opportunity offered me, while pretending to sleep, I could eat and swallow the papers.

The horses of the troopers were already bridled and saddled and hitched to the fence-post. It occurred to me, in my despair upon seeing this, that, if I could only succeed in throwing these people off their guard for a moment, I might find an opportunity to seize one of their own horses, upon which I could ride defiantly and wildly down the road into the darkness, trusting to night and the horse to carry me beyond reach of their pursuit.

These were only a few of the many thoughts that rushed through my brain that night, as I lay there on the porch, so near home and friends on one side, and so close to death and the gallows on the other. It is said that a drowning person will think of the events of a life-time in one short moment. I had _hours_ of agony that night that can never, never be described.

As I lay there looking up into the sky, perhaps for the last time, I thought I'd soon have an opportunity of finding out whether there were other worlds than ours. I was, indeed, going to that bourne from which no traveler ever returns.

The clouds, which had darkened the sky a little in the early part of the evening, were now slowly rolling by. I lay as still as death for an hour perhaps, watching the movements of the clouds; and thinking of my friends at home.

I wondered what each and every one was doing at that particular time, and imagined that most of my youthful associates were having a happy evening somewhere, while I, poor fool, was lying out on a Virginia porch in this dreadful fix, without a friend to counsel or advise with, while I might just as well have been at home and happy with the rest of them.

If they thought of me at all, it probably was as a prisoner still about Harper's Ferry; but I would never, perhaps, have the satisfaction of knowing that my work in the Rebel camps had been understood. While cogitating in this frame of mind the moon began to show through the breaking clouds, and, as suddenly as if a face had appeared to my vision, the Southern moon looked straight down on my face, flooding the porch for a moment with a stream of mellow light.

I was lying partly on my side at the time, my head resting on my arm for a pillow, as was my habit; my hat, which yet contained the tell-tale papers, was under my face. I was almost startled from my reverie, as if by an apparition, and, looking around hastily, I saw standing, like an equestrian statue, on the road the mounted sentry, while along side of me, but to my back, was _seated_ another fellow apparently wide-awake, who looked wonderingly at me as I raised my head so suddenly. I was closely guarded, and my heart sank within me as I again dropped my head to my favorite position on my pillowing arm.

The moon still shone clear, and as I looked with heavy, moist, downcast eye, I became suddenly thrilled through my whole being on discovering by the light of that indulgent old moon that right alongside of my hat was an open knot-hole in the floor of the porch.

I'm not a spiritualist or even a believer in the supernatural, but I must assert, upon my conviction, that some unseen influence must have directed and placed that ray of moonlight at that particular time, for the express purpose of enabling me to safely deposit the tell-tale papers. If it had not been for the timely rift in the clouds, I would never have discovered the little opening in the floor. Another fact which confirms me in my theory of the supernatural influence is, that, immediately after I had been so strangely shown the place of concealment, the light faded as suddenly as it had appeared, and for some time afterward the surroundings became obscure in the darkness.

There may have been, but I don't think there was another hole in that porch floor, and this one was quite insignificant.