“An’—­an’ de ol’ Jedge, he nebber done set her free?”

“No; nor the mother.  I do not know why, only that it is a fact.”

“An’ now she done b’long ter dis yere Massa Kirby?”

“Yes, he won all the Beaucaire property, including the slaves, in a poker game on the river, the night Beaucaire died.”

“Ah done heered all ‘bout dat, sah.  An’ yer nebber know’d dis yere girl afore et all?”

“No, I never even saw her.  I chanced to hear the story, and went to the house to warn them, as no one else would.  I was too late, and no other course was left but to help her escape.  That is the whole of it.”

He asked several other questions, but at last appeared satisfied, and after that we discussed the guard duty of the day, both agreeing it would not be safe for us to permit any possible pursuit to pass by us up the river unseen.  Sam professed himself as unwearied by the night’s work, and willing to stand the first watch; and my eyes followed his movements as he scrambled across the intervening ravine, and disappeared within a fringe of woods bordering the shore of the river.  Shortly after I lay down in the tree shade, and must have fallen asleep almost immediately.  I do not know what aroused me, but I immediately sat upright, startled and instantly awake, the first object confronting me being Sam on the crest of the opposite ridge, eagerly beckoning me to join him.  The moment he was assured of my coming, and without so much as uttering a word of explanation, he vanished again into the shadow of the woods.

I crossed the ravine with reckless haste, clambering up the opposite bank, and sixty feet beyond suddenly came into full view of the broad expanse of water.  Scarcely had I glimpsed this rolling flood, sparkling under the sun’s rays, when my gaze turned up stream, directed by an excited gesture of the negro.  Less than a mile away, its rapidly revolving wheel churning the water into foam in ceaseless battle against the current, was a steamboat.  It was not a large craft, and so dingy looking that, even at that distance, it appeared dull gray in color.  A number of moving figures were perceptible on the upper deck; two smokestacks belched forth a vast quantity of black smoke, sweeping in clouds along the water surface, and a large flag flapped conspicuously against the sky.  I stared at the apparition, scarcely comprehending the reality of what I beheld.

“Yer bettah stoop down more, sah,” Sam urged.  “Fer sum o’ dem fellars might see yer yit.  Ah nebber heerd nuthin’, ner saw no smoke till she cum a puffin’ ’round de end ’o dat p’int.  Ah cudn’t dare go fer yer then, sah, fer fear dey’d see me, so Ah jus’ nat’larly lay down yere, an’ watched her go by.”

“Is it a government boat?”

“Ah reckon maybe; leastwise thar’s a heap o’ sojers aboard her—­reg’lars Ah reckon, fer dey’s all in uniform.  But everybody aboard wan’t sojers.”