wish--it takes but a few moments. However,
nobody would notice your buttons unless you should be within six feet
of him and in broad daylight."

"Yet I think it would be better to change now," said I; "there are more
Confederates than Carolinians."

The Doctor assented, and we made the change. I put the palmetto buttons
into my haversack.

Before I slept everything had been prepared for the journey. I studied
the map carefully and left it with the Doctor. The gray clothing was
wrapped in a gum-blanket, to be strapped to the saddle. My escort was
expected to provide for everything else. I decided to wear a black soft
hat of the Doctor's, whose head was as big as mine, although he weighed
about half as much as I did. My own shoes were coarse enough, and of no
peculiar make. In my pockets I put nothing except a knife, some
Confederate money, some silver coin, and a ten-dollar note of the bank
of Hamburg, South Carolina--a note which Dr. Khayme possessed and which
he insisted on my taking. There would be nothing on me to show that I
was a Union soldier, except my uniform. I would go unarmed.

Before daylight I was aroused. My man was waiting for me outside the
tent. I intended to slip out without disturbing the Doctor, but he was
already awake. He pressed my hand, but said not a word.

The man and I mounted and took the road, he leading.

"Do you know the way to Old Church?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," said he.

"What is your name?"

"Jones, sir; don't you know me?"

"What? My friend of the black horse?"

"Yes, sir."

"But I believe you are in blue this time."

"Yes; I got no orders."

I was glad to have Jones; he was a self-reliant man, I had already had
occasion to know.

We marched rapidly, Jones always in the lead. The air was fine. The
morning star shone tranquil on our right. Vega glittered overhead, and
Capella in the far northeast, while at our front the handle of the
Dipper cut the horizon. The atmosphere was so pure that I looked for the
Pleiades, to count them; they had not risen.

We passed at first along a road on either side of which troops lay in
bivouac, with here and there the tent of some field officer; then parks
of artillery showed in the fields; then long lines of wagons, with
horses and mules picketed behind. Occasionally we met a horseman, but
nothing was said to him or by him.

Now the encampment was behind us, and we rode along a lane where nothing
was seen except fields and woods.