Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/254

244 city. The entrenchments and barracks were in good order, but Singleton studiously avoided their use; and, to the thoughtless wayfarer passing by the little fort and the clumsy blockhouse, nothing could possibly have looked more pacific. The partisan, though immediately at hand, preferred a less ostentatious position. We find him accordingly, close clustering with his troop in the deep wood that lay behind it. Here, for a brief period at least, his lurking-place was secure, and he only desired it for a few days longer. Known to the enemy, he could not have held it, even for a time so limited; but would have been compelled to rapid flight, or a resort to the deeper shadows and fastnesses of the swamp.

At this point the river ceased to be navigable even for the common poleboats of the country; and this was another source of its security. Filled up by crowding trees—the gloomy cypresses striding boldly into its very bosom—it slunk away into shade and silence, winding and broken, after a brief effort at a concentrated course, into numberless little bayous and indentures, muddy creeks, stagnating ponds, miry holes; constituting, throughout, a region only pregnable by desperation, and only loved by the fierce and filthy reptile, the ominous bird, the subtile fox, and venomous serpent. This region, immediately at hand, promised a safe place of retreat, for a season, to the adventurous partisan; and in its gloomy recesses he well knew that, unless guided by a genuine swamp-sucker, all Europe might vainly seek to find the little force, so easily concealed, which he now commanded.

Humphries soon furnished his captain with all the intelligence he had obtained at Dorchester. He gave a succinct account of the aftair of Mother Blonay, and her visit to the village—of the movement of Huck to assail him on the Stono—and of the purpose of the tory to proceed onward, by the indirect route already mentioned, to join with Tarleton on the Catawba. The latter particulars had been furnished the lieutenant by the two troopers who had joined him.

The whole account determined Singleton to hurry his own movement to join with Marion. That part of the narrative of Humphries relating to Mother Blonay, decided the commander to keep Goggle still a prisoner, as one not to be trusted. Giving