ldn't I, me bye? What chance would I have if I didn't? I
couldn't joke when I was dead, could I?"

"Well, well, think over what I've said, and remember that penitence half
absolves guilt."

This was said for the benefit of the guard, who had approached as Jack
arose to take his leave.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR.

Opportunity is an instinct to the man who dares. To him the law of the
impossible has no meaning. To him there is no such thing as the
unexpected. What he wants comes to pass, because he can not see danger,
difficulty, nor any of the obstacles that daunt the prudent and the
temporizing. It is, therefore, the impossible that is fulfilled in many
of the crises of life. By the same token it is the foolhardy and
preposterous thing that is most readily done in determinate
conjunctures. We guard against the possible, but we take little note of
the enterprises that involve foolhardiness or desperation. Daring has
safeguards of its own that are understood only when mad ventures have
come to successful issue. Helpless and hopeless as Jack's situation
seemed, the very poverty of his resources, helped the daring scheme of
escape that filled his mind night and day during these apparently
indolent weeks of pleasuring in the ranks of his enemies. Then, too, the
arrogant self-confidence of his captors was an inestimable aid. Military
discipline and provost vigilance were at their slackest stage in the
rebel lines at this triumphant epoch in the fortunes of the Confederacy.
The easily won combat at Bull Run had filled the authorities--as well as
the rank and file--with overweening contempt for the resources of the
North, or the enterprise of its soldiers. It was not until long after
the time I am now writing about, that the prisoners were closely guarded
and access refused to the idle and curious. But, as a matter of fact,
nothing in the fortunes of our friends equals the truth of the thrilling
and desperate chances taken by Northern captives to escape the lingering
death of prison in the South. Since the war, volumes have been written
of personal experience, amply attested, that would in romance receive
the derisive mark of the critics. Danger daily met becomes a commonplace
to men of resolution. Things which appall us when we read them become a
simple part of our purpose when we live in an atmosphere of peril and
put our hope only in ending the ordeal.

The incident I am narrating were the wor