“Listen!—­Good God, he’s gone!” Jack ejaculated as Dick, taking advantage of a cross-street, shot off into the darkness.  Jack halted.  To call would be dangerous; to run after him excite comment, perhaps pursuit and discovery.  There was nothing to be done but wait at the rendezvous.  He would come back—­Jack tried to make himself believe that he could depend on that.  When, after a circuitous walk of half an hour, he reached the cabin of Blake, the colored agent of Mrs. Gannat, he found a note from his patroness warning him that the prison authorities had become alert.  A rumor of a plot to escape had penetrated the War Department, and orders had been given to increase the precaution of the guards.  The reception at the President’s was a stroke of good fortune for the prisoners, as all the higher officials would be detained there until morning.  Perhaps, in view of the chance, it would be better to anticipate the hour of flight, as, unfortunately, the horses that had been got together for the fugitives were in use for the Davis guests, and on such short notice others could not be provided without exciting suspicion or pointing to the agency by which the liberation had been brought about.

“Ah, if Dick were only here,” Jack groaned, “we could go to the square and lead away enough staff or orderly horses to serve the purpose.  The little wretch!  It would serve him properly to leave him here mooning over his sweetheart.”  Then his heart took up a little tremor of protest.  He sighed gently.  He, too, had loitered when his heart pleaded.  Why should Dick be firmer than he?  It was after midnight when he reached the sheltering, broken, ground along the river.  The provost prison fronted the water.  It had been a tobacco warehouse, built long before, and hastily transformed into its present military purpose.  It was set in what was called a “cut” in the heavy clay bank, thus bringing the lower windows below the level of the surrounding land.  There were sentries stationed in front and rear, who walked at regular intervals from corner to corner.  The sentinel on the high level to the rear could not see the ground along the wall, and it was this fact which Jack calculated upon to enable him to help the prisoners to remove the debris of the wall through which they were to presently emerge.  The night was pitchy dark.  This had been taken into consideration long before.  Heavy clouds hung over the river, throwing the prison and its environs into still more security for Jack’s purpose.  He reconnoitred every available point, searched every corner of possible danger, and as the time passed he began to rage with impatience against Dick, whose delay was now periling the success of the enterprise.