each instant lest our frail shelter should be torn to splinters by a
cannon ball, was something that got on one's nerves more, I dare
venture to say, than any other danger.

During the first two or three minutes after the excitement of meeting
with Uncle 'Rasmus had died away, there were times when it seemed well
nigh impossible for me to so far control myself as to remain in-doors;
it was as if I must go out; as if I must face that danger which seemed
so imminent; as if I could not meet death while being all ignorant of
how it might come to me.

It was well, perhaps, that Pierre started a conversation by asking Uncle
'Rasmus how he had passed the hours of our absence, and I believe little
Frenchie did this rather in order to take our minds from what was going
on around us, than because he really desired information.

The old negro told us in his peculiar way, of awaiting our coming with
whatsoever of patience he could summon, believing each instant we would
enter, and then as the hours wore on fear, as was quite natural, took
possession of him. He could not imagine any combination of circumstances
which would keep us abroad so long, save we had fallen into the hands of
the enemy, most like arrested as spies. Before morning came he was
convinced that such must have been the case, and the only hope he had of
learning what had befallen us was in the coming of Morgan; but there was
a fear that he might have been taken in our company, and would therefore
share our fate.

"I done got terribly flustered up, chillun, an' dats a fac', kase I
counted I wasn' eber gwine to see youse any mo'. Dere was one spell jes'
'fore daybreak when I got it inter my min' dat dere was nuffin lef' fo'
de ole nigger to do but skitter out ob dis yere village, an' it was
mighty uncertain whether he could get out ob it or not."

"In that case what did you count on doing with Horry Sims?" Pierre
asked.

"I done made up my min' to leabe him sittin' up in de chair by de
winder, kase I couldn' take him wid me, an' it wouldn't hab done no how
to let him go gallivantin' 'roun' from one ob dese yere ossifers to de
odder tellin' 'em what had happened to him."

Then the old man painted with painful vividness the hunger and thirst
which had come upon him with the morning, after he had decided it would
be impossible for him to make his way through the lines. He repeated
what Horry Sims had said while begging for food or for water, and added
with an od