For answer Jack gave him a sharp push, and the discomfited plunderer hurried on with a good-humored grunt.  All was silent in the cabin.  The windows were slatted, without glass, and the door was unfastened.  Jack pushed in boldly, leaving Barney to guard the rear.  Peaceful snoring came from one corner, and Jack, shading a lighted match with his hand, looked about him.  In the hurried glimpse he caught sight of an old negro on a husk mattress, and the heads of young boys just beyond.  They were sleeping so soundly that the striking of the match never aroused them.  Jack had to shake the man violently before the profound sleep was broken.

“I say, wake up! or can you wake?”

“What dat?  Who’s dar—­you, Gabe?  What you ’bout?”

The old man shuffled to a sitting posture, and Jack, renewing his match, held it in the negro’s blinking eyes.

“Have you any food?  We are Yankees, and want something for companions in the swamp.  Are we in danger here?  We heard cavalry-men on the other side of the pond; are they rebel or Yankee?”

At this volley of questions the bewildered man turned piteously to the sleepers, and then stared at Jack in perplexity.

“’Deed, marsa captain, I don no noffin ’tall, I—­I hain’t been to de crick fo’ a monf.  I’se fo’bid to go da—­I—­”

“Well, well, have you any food?  Get that first, and then talk,” Jack cried, impatiently.

But now the boys were awake, and Jack had to give them warning to make no noise.  Yes, there was food, plenty.  Cooked bacon, hoe-cake, and cold chicken, boiled eggs, and, to Barney’s immeasurable joy, sorghum whisky.  The hunger of the invaders satisfied, each provided himself with a sack to feed the waiting comrades; and while this was going on they extracted from the now reassured negroes that the spot was just behind Warick Creek, near Lee’s Mills; that parties of rebels from the fort at Yorktown had been at work building lines of earthworks, and that every now and then Yankees came across and skirmished in the woods a mile or two up in the direction whence Jack had come.  The cabin was only a step from the main road, upon which the rebels were encamped—­a regiment or more.  Some Yankee prisoners had been captured early in the morning, and were in the block-house, a short distance up the road.

“Can you lead us near the block-house?” Jack asked.

“I reckon I can; but ef I do they’ll shu’ ah’ find it out, and den I’se don, ’cos Marsa Hinton—­he’s in de cavalry—­he’ll guess dat it was me dat tuk you ’uns dar.”

“Do you want to be free?  Do you want to go into the Union lines?”

“Free! oh, de Lor’, free!  O marsa captain, don’t fool a ole man.  Free!  I’d rudder be free dan—­dan go to Jesus—­almost.”

“Have you a wife—­are these your children?”

“My ole woman is up at Marsa Hinton’s; she’s de nuss gal.  Dese is my boys; yes, sah.”