He wrung his hands together in the extremity of his despair. Which was the right thing to do? Who would help him in this desperate strait?
He leaned against a tree, his head throbbing and his whole mind bewildered in the presence of the most serious problem he had ever had to face. Then once again came to him one of those mysterious, silent promptings, so frequent in the last anguished quarter of an hour. And this time it was as if Ephraim spoke: ‘Do yer duty, Luce, and never mind me.’
‘I will,’ he cried aloud, dashing the tears from his eyes. ‘I will. But I’ll come back and find you afterwards, Grizzly, if I die for it!’
He braced himself up to consider the best means to carry out his dual resolve. He knew very well that, no matter how many men might have been detached to the aid of the sentry at the ditch, the Federal outposts would still remain in their place, with beyond them the last line of sentinels on the side of Jackson’s army. To reach his goal he must first pass this obstacle, and he realised that in the ferment raised by the present crisis, the time for further stratagem had passed, and that his only hope lay in making a rush for it.
A sense of uneasiness was everywhere, and the outposts were especially alert. Not only had the rumour spread of the presence in camp and subsequent escape therefrom of a supposed rebel spy, but there was a pretty well defined feeling that the morrow would not pass without an attack on the part of Jackson, though exactly how or where the blow would be delivered, no man could say. Therefore the outposts kept even stricter watch than usual, ready at the first sign of the advance of the enemy to give the alarm and fall back upon the camp, where, on that night, the Federal soldiers lay on their arms.
The uneasy feeling was justified by what was happening in the Confederate camp. The night had descended upon another Federal repulse. The veteran Ewell had hurled back Frémont at Cross Keys, and driven him from the field after a long and desperate conflict. Then, when the darkness put a stop to the operations, Jackson recalled the troops of Ewell, and leaving a strong rearguard in front of Frémont, returned to Port Republic. Here he hastily constructed a foot-bridge, by means of wagons placed end to end, over the south fork of the Shenandoah, and gave orders that at dawn his infantry were to cross and try conclusions with Shields at Lewiston. He then retired to snatch a few hours of well-earned repose. Shields, meanwhile, had managed to get a second despatch conveyed to Frémont, laying before him a plan of operations which differed little from those set forth in the lost despatch; for as Ephraim had shrewdly surmised, there was but scant time to alter the disposition of an entire army; and, moreover, Shields, sanguine to the last, could not bring himself to believe that, from a camp so strongly guarded, the spy had really been able to make good his escape. He was convinced that if accident did not deliver the bold rebel into his hands during the night, his capture would certainly be accomplished in the morning. That there were two people concerned in this escapade he had never fully realised, and that the despatch had passed from one hand to another, he never even dreamed.