‘It’ll hurt ye monstrous, Luce,’ said Ephraim.
‘Nonsense! It will not hurt at all, tied around my shirt; and if it should, what matter? It’s better than being shot, I should say. Oh, do be quick! Don’t you see this gives the best chance to both of us to get off scot-free? Tie it tight now. Don’t be afraid.’
Under this incessant urging, Ephraim fastened the rope round Lucius with fingers that trembled a good deal from excitement and apprehensions for the safety of his young comrade. But at last it was done, and Lucius turned and faced him.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you can see that the current is very strong by the rate at which we are travelling. We are not far off the shore; but it may take a long time to get there. I think that I can do it, though; but if not, if I call out to you, or if I should sink, haul me on board again. That’s all you have to do, besides helping as much as you can with the butt of my rifle.’
‘I wish ye wouldn’t, Luce,’ implored Ephraim. ‘The light is goin’ fast, and thar’s no rumpus yit, ez fur ez I kin hear. Ef we hev good luck, they’ll miss us altogether. But ef they come and pop at ye while ye’re in the water’——
‘Pooh!’ interrupted Lucius, ‘I shall be all right. Just you keep a sharp lookout along the bank, and be ready to haul me in if necessary. Good-bye! I’m off!’ He waved his hand, and slipped noiselessly off the gunwale of the boat, feet foremost, into the river.
Meantime a very different scene was being enacted at the Federal camp. Hardly had General Shields informed himself that the scare created by the boys was a false one, and that he had at present nothing to fear from the dreaded and ubiquitous Jackson, than his attention was arrested by the sudden appearance of his ‘admirable civilian,’ Captain Hopkins, who with disordered dress, flushed features, and breathless from running, rushed unceremoniously into the presence of his commanding officer.
‘Captain Hopkins!’ exclaimed General Shields in astonishment. ‘Back already. Why, you’ve been gone little more than an hour.’ Then as his eye fell upon the captain’s untidy dress and general look of tribulation, he added anxiously: ‘There is nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Don’t tell me anything has happened to that,’ interrupted Shields vehemently. ‘Surely not. Surely not.’