“Nothing to me!”

“Certainly not.  Why speak like that?  Have you forgotten again that I am a slave—­a negress?  Think, Lieutenant Knox, what it would mean to you to be caught in my company; to be overtaken while attempting to assist me in escaping from my master.  Now no one dreams of such a thing, and no one ever need dream.  You have had your adventure; let it end here.  I shall be grateful to you always, but—­but I cannot bear to drag you deeper into this mire.”

“You order me to leave you?”

“I cannot order; I am a slave.  My only privilege is to request, urge, implore.  I can merely insist that it will be best—­best for us both—­for you to go.  Surely you also must realize that this is true?”

“I do not know exactly what I realize,” I said doubtfully.  “Nothing seems altogether clear in my mind.  If I could leave you in safety, in the care of friends, perhaps I should not hesitate—­but now—­”

“Am I any worse off than the others?” she interrupted.  “I, at least, have yet the chance of escape, while they remain helplessly in Kirby’s clutches.  When—­when I think of them, I no longer care about myself; I—­I feel almost responsible for their fate, and—­and it would kill me to know that I had dragged you down also.  You have no right to sacrifice yourself for such as I.”

“You have been brooding over all this,” I said gently, “sitting here alone, and thinking while we worked.  I am not going to answer you now.  There is no need.  Nothing can be done until night, whatever we decide upon.  You will go back with us to the boat?”

“Yes; I simply cannot stay here,” her eyes wandering toward the cabin.

I took the lead on the return, finding the path easy enough to follow in the full light of day.  The sincere honesty of her plea—­the knowledge that she actually meant it—­only served to draw me closer, to strengthen my determination not to desert.  Her face was ever before me as I advanced—­a bravely pathetic face, wonderfully womanly in its girlish contour—­appealing to every impulse of my manhood.  I admitted the truth of what she said—­it had been largely love of adventure, the rash recklessness of youth, which had brought me here.  But this was my inspiration no longer.  I had begun to realize that something deeper, more worthy, now held me to the task.  What this was I made no attempt to analyze—­possibly I did not dare—­but, nevertheless, the mere conception of deserting her in the midst of this wilderness was too utterly repugnant for expression.  No, not that; whatever happened, it would never be that.

The last few rods of our journey lay through thick underbrush, and beneath the spreading branches of interlacing trees.  It was a gloomy, primitive spot, where no evidence of man was apparent.  Suddenly I emerged upon the bank of the creek, with the rude log wharf directly before me.  I could hear in that silence the sound of those following, as they continued to crunch a passage through the thicket, but I stopped transfixed, staring at the water—­nothing else greeted my eyes; both the boats were gone.