Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/12

212 composure acquired by long habit, and proceeded to pass the day in a loft with the usual dreary silence.

The night, which was to be the last of our wanderings, was mild and still. A light mist, token of the coming spring, gave us a feeling of additional security. We could almost believe that this was the "beginning of the end."

After taking leave of the faithful oystermen, to whom we gave a watch for the valuable service they had rendered, (we were parting with our dearest possessions now) we placed ourselves in the keeping of our new friend, who was to pilot us across and still farther down the river in his own boat, and put us ashore within a few miles of the town of Williamsburg (the outpost of our army). The fine, light yawl was amply supplied with oars, and, being well manned, made good speed.

In the stillness of the night we could hear the sound of the paddle-wheels of our steam fleet beating the water, eighteen miles distant, and proposed rowing directly to Yorktown, but yielded to the entreaties of our guide, who feared getting into difficulties should it be known that he favored either side.

Just before midnight, after a slight encounter with a belt of thin ice, we landed on a long pier, about which deserted barracks and warehouses indicated that the place had been used by the enemy as a dépôt of supplies during the siege of Yorktown, two years before.

We rewarded our pilot with a watch and chain, the last available bits of personal-property possessions of the Captain.

This silver watch had but one hand, and the works were detached from the case, but it could still be persuaded to tick a little, if carefully manipulated. The chain purported to be of gold, but the recipient doubted this, after a liberal application to his tongue. However, it was all we had to offer, and he couldn't very well take us back; so, after a bit of grumbling—for he had undoubtedly expected a gold chronometer, at least—he left us to our fate. In a desolate village of huts, we tried in vain to raise a human being. We succeeded at last in rousing a White Man from his bed, in a house more pretentious and apart from the rest; but he was in such an agony of terror at our appearance that we could get no information from him. At a gentle insinuation that we were Southerners, he was a good, though uncommunicative Rebel; but when, in despair, we proclaimed ourselves runaway Yankees, his speech became utterly unintelligible. In his attempts at conversation, we caught the words, "Free Nigger; house at the end of the lane; knows all about it: "which was quite sufficient, for if the Blacks were not particularly warlike as a race, they were fearless in their opinions, and no one doubted ¢heir political position.

A series of double-knocks on the door of the easily found cabin roused our last guide and his barking dogs. No cause for deception here on either side:

"We are Northern officers escaped from Richmond. How can we go safely to Williamsburg?" we asked in a breath.

"Straight ahead, on de main road," said he. "When you get two mile along, you will come to a branch (creek); on de other side you will see two chimneys—dar you'll find your pickets."

"Any Rebs about here; any conscript hunters?" we asked.

"Haven't seen one for more'n two weeks," he replied.

If we had been strong throughout all, we were giants of strength now. The very face of Nature was changed in the dim, hazy light, and the air seemed laden with the perfume of Northern orchards. Even the red, clayey soil lost its stickiness in this wondrous mental atmosphere of freedom. With our long, swinging strides the distance was as