Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/24

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH possibly for food also if any negroes yet remained there. Every inch of this open territory would be diligently searched for the wounded, and my sole chance for escape lay somewhere without the immediate zone of battle. I rubbed my forehead, endeavoring to recall more vividly the faint impression. It must have been two, perhaps three, miles distant, a large white house, almost completely surrounded by trees, and barely showing down the narrow gap of the valley. If I followed the stream I could scarcely go astray.

I struggled to my feet, experiencing a thrill of relief at the subsidence of pain, and the noticeable return of strength to my limbs. I was less seriously injured than I had at first believed, and this knowledge added immeasurably to my stock of hope and courage. Of Irish blood, ardent, combative, the very sense of surrounding danger became a stimulant. I stole silently down beneath the gloom of the bank shadow for possibly a hundred yards, scanning the opposite shore with anxious eyes, yet perceiving nothing calculated to alarm. Then I crept up to the level above, discovering there the faint traces of a road, which I followed, walking forward cautiously. There were numerous fires glowing redly some distance to the right, across the ploughed field, and I could hear a vigorous hammering on iron. Once I sank down into a shallow depression as three shadowy horsemen rode silently past, and, a little beyond, cautiously circled a broken-down army wagon, with a man sleeping peacefully underneath. Then the road led downward into the broadening valley, running through a black fringe of trees, [ 16 ]