When at noon, at a farmhouse, we had fed horses and dined, I at the planter’s board, my “slaves” under the house-grove trees, Euonymus took the lines, and for five hours Luke slept inside.  Then they changed places again, and Euonymus and I, face to face, watched the long hot day wane, and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight.  Often I saw questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently, but I dared not encourage them; dared not be a talkative angel.  Also my brain had its questions.  How was I to get out of the most perilous trap into which a sane man—­if sane I was—­ever thrust himself?  There was no sign that we were being pursued, but it was a harrowing puzzle how, without drawing suspicion upon the runaways, to get them once more separated from me and the coach while I should vanish as a lady and reappear as a gentleman.

“Euonymus, boy, if I should by and by dress as a man could you put these woman things on, over what you’re wearing, and be a lady in my place?”

“Why, eh, y’—­yass’m.  Oh, yass’m, ef you say so, my—­mistress; howsomever, you know what de good book say’ ’bout de Ethiopium.”

“Can’t change—­yes, I know; but this would be only for an hour or two and in the dark.”

“It’d have to be pow’ful dahk,” sighed Euonymus, and from Robelia’s sunbonnet came—­“Unh!”

Rebecca interposed:  “An’ still, o’ co’se, we all gwine do ezac’ly what you say.”

“Well,” I responded, “maybe we won’t do that.”  And we never did.  I was still “Mrs. Southmayd,” as we came into a small railway station.  At the ticket-window I asked if any one had come up in the train of half an hour before, inquiring for a lady in a coach.

“No, ma’am, nobody got off that train.  But there’s another train at half past eight.”

“Oh,” I whined, “he won’t come on that; he’s overrated my speed and gone on to the next station, making five miles more going for me!”

“Why, no, you can give three of your servants a pass to go on with the carriage, keep your maid and wait for the train.”

“Ah, no!  No lady can choose to travel by rail where she can go in her own coach!”

They said no more except to warn Luke of a bad piece of road about two miles on.  Sure enough, in its very middle—­crack!—­we broke down.  “De kingbolt done gone clean in two!” said Luke, and Robelia repeated the news explosively.

“We’ll leave the coach,” I announced.  “Fold the lap-robes on the backs of the two horses, for Rebecca and me.  You-all can walk beside us.”

After a while, so going, we passed a large plantation house, its windows ruddy with home cheer.  A second quarter-mile brought dimly to view a railroad water-tank and an empty flag-station house, and in the next bit of woods I spoke to Euonymus:  “Have you that bundle?  Ah, yes.  Luke, this boy and I are going off here a step for me to change my dress.  If any passer questions you, say I’ll be right back.”