I came at
last into the road that we had taken and consumed half the night in
cautiously approaching the landing, pistol in hand and heart in mouth. The
boat was gone! I continued my journey along the stream--in search of
another.
My clothing was still damp from my morning bath, my teeth rattled with
cold, but I kept on along the stream until I reached the limit of the
cornfields and entered a dense wood. Through this I groped my way, inch by
inch, when, suddenly emerging from a thicket into a space slightly more
open, I came upon a smoldering camp-fire surrounded by prostrate figures
of men, upon one of whom I had almost trodden. A sentinel, who ought to
have been shot, sat by the embers, his carbine across his lap, his chin
upon his breast. Just beyond was a group of unsaddled horses. The men were
asleep; the sentinel was asleep; the horses were asleep. There was
something indescribably uncanny about it all. For a moment I believed them
all lifeless, and O'Hara's familiar line, "The bivouac of the dead,"
quoted itself in my consciousness. The emotion that I felt was that
inspired by a sense of the supernatural; of the actual and imminent peril
of my position I had no thought. When at last it occurred to me I felt it
as a welcome relief, and stepping silently back into the shadow retraced
my course without having awakened a soul. The vividness with which I can
now recall that scene is to me one of the marvels of memory.
Getting my bearings again with some difficulty, I now made a wide detour
to the left, in the hope of passing around this outpost and striking the
river beyond.
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