On arriving at Jackson, the evening after he had forwarded his telegraphic dispatch, Harry found Dr. Humphries at the depot awaiting his arrival.  After they had exchanged hearty expressions of delight at meeting each other again, they proceeded to the house where Emma was anxiously looking out for her lover.

The customary salutations between lovers who have been separated being over, Harry proceeded to give an account of his escape, which was listened to with great interest by his hearers.

“By the way,” he remarked, as soon as he had concluded, “has a soldier giving his name as Wentworth, and claiming to be a friend of mine, called here within the last ten days.”

“No one has called here of that name,” replied Dr. Humphries.

“I am very anxious to receive some intelligence of him,” remarked Harry, “He was the friend I mentioned, having made my escape with.”

“He may have taken a different road to the one you pursued,” Dr. Humphries observed.

“If I were satisfied in my mind that he did escape safely, my fears would be allayed,” he answered, “but,” he continued, “we left the gates of the prison together, and were not four yards apart when the treachery of the guard was discovered.  We both started at a full run, and almost instantaneously the Yankees, who lay in ambush for us, fired, their muskets in the direction we were going.  The bullets whistled harmless by me, and I continued my flight at the top of my speed, nor did I discover the absence of my friend until some distance from the prison, when stopping to take breath, I called him by name, and receiving no answer found out that he was not with me.  I am afraid he might have been shot.”

“Did you hear no cry after the Yankees had fired,” enquired Dr. Humphries.

“No, and that is the reason I feel anxious to learn his fate.  Had he uttered any cry, I should be certain that he was wounded, but the silence on his part may have been caused from instant death.”

“You would have, heard him fall at any rate; had he been struck by the Yankee bullets,” remarked Dr. Humphries.

“That is very doubtful,” he replied.  “I was running at such a rapid rate, and the uproar made by the Yankees was sufficient to drown the sound that a fall is likely to create.”

“I really trust your friend is safe,” said Dr. Humphries.  “Perhaps, after all, he did not make any attempt to escape, but surrendered himself to the Yankees.”

“There is not the slightest chance of his having done such a thing,” Harry answered.  “He was determined to escape, and had told me that he would rather be shot than be re-captured, after once leaving the prison.  I shall never cease to regret the misfortune should he have fallen in our attempt to escape.  His kindness to me at Fort Donelson had caused a warm friendship to spring up between us.  Besides which, he has a wife and two small children in New Orleans, who were the sole cause of his attempting to escape.  He informed me that they were not in very good circumstances, and should Alfred Wentworth have been killed at Camp Douglas, God help his poor widow and orphans!”