“The other side the canal!” We ran westward along the track to a trestle-bridge over the canal, on which we crawled hands and knees, seeing stars reflected in the dark water, and beyond came at last upon a road that seemed to lead as we wished, under the pole star, northward, where should lie the blockading ships. CHAPTER VII.--WE COME TO A RIVER CALLED ELIZABETH, AND TO ANOTHER CALLED JAMES--CONCLUSION. |We left the railroad behind us and took that northern highway. It was still early in the night when we passed a big plantation. There was a white house hack from the road, with pillars and lighted windows. We had slipped aside, hearing the sound of a galloping horse. It came up swiftly from the south, a white horse or light grey, and the rider turned him in at the wide gate into the shadows of the driveway. Then the front door went open: there were women's voices, and the cries of laughter, of children; the man ran up the steps, and the light from the hall shone on his grey uniform and braided bat; the door closed, and we plodded on in the dark. Beyond were cabins scattered in the fields, and presently a wood, and a little peak-roofed building close by the road, lighted and noisy with singing; and we slipped aside again, avoiding the light. It was a negro service. We could see the crowded black heads through the windows, and even hear the words of the hymn, following a queer, plaintive tune. The preacher on the platform shouted and swung his arms: "Oh, don' you heah the trumpet blow? Lulah! Lulah! Don' you heah the trumpet blow? All the mountains fall." “Notheh!” cried the preacher. “Thank God foh' notheh! Don' drap 'im!” "Someone meet me in the dark-- Lulah! Lulah! Someone meet me in the dark, Lif' me when I fall." And we plodded on “in the dark.” The wood gave way to open flat fields, and glimmering sky, where the Dipper hung, with its pointers signaling the pole star. “Looks like we're most out of it, Bennie,” said Calhoun; “but you can't tell. I'm not figuring so much as I was.” “Why not?'' “Well, it's this way. Why, look at it! I figured the thing out, but it was you that flopped the ship around, and nothing in it but trouble for you. You had no use for it. And what made the old lady pull Tommy Todd off us? Not me. I didn't count on her at all. Then I figured us into the hold of Tommy Todd's canal boat in a bad way, and it was you bumped heads with Turpentine and fired Tommy Todd's bedding, sort of off-hand-how-d'ye-do; and I'd been figuring all day, like _x_ plus _y_. Shucks! Flip a cent. Hear those niggers singing?” “What did it mean, 'Meet me in the dark, Lift me when I fall,' and all that?” “Don't know. Means you might quit figuring. It's too dark, this world, too dark.”