All necessary arrangements being made, they assembled at the gin house on the night of departure to bid Simon farewell. He parted with his sister with many misgivings, fearing that she might lose her own and the baby's life in this attempt to escape. He bade each man adieu, and Elsie and Octavia an affectionate farewell. He returned home, retired, but there was no sleep for him that night. At times he was almost tempted to pursue the escaping party and bring them back. Without Elsie and the child he was indeed desolate, as he had not a single relation in all that country. Just before day he managed to fall asleep, to be awakened almost immediately by a commotion in the negro quarter, and on inquiring the cause was told that Jim and Jack had run away. He then told his informant that Elsie and Octavia could not be found, and they must have been stolen by the negro men. To allay suspicion he had his horse saddled, blew up his dogs, and was soon ostensibly on the negroes' tracks. He took pains however, to go in a different direction to the one the escaping party went. After making a spurious chase of three or four hours he returned, saying that the negroes had escaped, at the same time making loud lamentations because Elsie and the child had been stolen. It is unnecessary to say that his grief was real. Let us now follow the fugitives. They traveled only at night, concealing themselves in the day. The second night out they met some one with a squealing pig on his shoulder. The Northerners, fearing detection, captured the man, who proved to be Brutus, the runaway negro from Colonel R.'s farm. They explained their mission to him, and asked him to go along with them, and if he didn't they would treat him like he was going to treat that stolen pig, which he took out of the pen up the road. Elsie being in the party, he was only too glad to accompany them. He proved to be a valuable acquisition, being used to the woods, detecting any noise with the celerity of a cat. He was also of great assistance in carrying Octavia, considering it a labor and burden of love, and would not relinquish her, only from sheer exhaustion. All went well with the party, until the fourth night out, when they came to a swollen river, and not a skiff to be found. An axe had been brought along, to use in such a contingency, with which a raft was soon made, and the party on it, and was being rowed over by the negroes, who were three-fourths across, when, by some unaccountable manner, Octavia fell overboard, and would have been drowned if the moon had not been shining, which gave light for Brutus, who had jumped in the river, to see and catch her as she arose, when he swam to the shore with her. It seemed that fate was against the little child, this being the second time in her brief existence that she had narrowly escaped a watery grave. The day after this accident they came near being detected, but, through the strategy of Brutus, they escaped.