a few yards of them, accompanied
by a troupe of merry children. They however went on their way, utterly
unconscious of the close proximity of two terrible Yankees!

Here our fugitives remained quietly concealed until night, and then
cautiously crept away. They proceeded onward until they found themselves
near a junction of cross-roads. Arrived at this junction, matters looked
serious. Unlike mariners, they had no compass; unlike Indians, they were
inexpert at discerning a trail; and what was more appalling, they
distinctly saw reared up against the moonlit sky--a gallows! Our two
friends approached this object very cautiously. It was not an unusual
thing to hang spies, and not unfrequently those _mistaken_ for spies,
but to hang them on a regularly constructed gibbet was not usual; and
therefore while Lemon insisted that the black and skeleton-like object
that loomed against the horizon was a gallows, he still entertained some
doubt upon the subject, and determined to satisfy himself by a closer
inspection.

The weird object before them proved to be an innocent guide-board--the
article of all others they most needed at that moment. Like the
celebrated laws of Nero, however, the _directions_ were posted very
high, but Lemon being tall, our hero mounted on his shoulders and by the
light of the moon deciphered the inscription. They had now no difficulty
in choosing their way. On they pushed therefore; and during the black
darkness of the night, crept through the tangled underwood, and over
swamps where loathsome, crawling things that shun by day the presence of
man, now seemed to seek his acquaintance. How mysterious are these dense
untrodden forests of the South! The very air one breathes is living.
Throughout the day a million chirping, whirring, twittering sounds,
salute the ear. The short grass beneath the forest trees moves, writhes,
and creeps with microscopic life, until the brain grows dizzy at the
sight. At night it is no less marvellous to hear the myriad denizens of
the swamps and woods; and terrible when your tread on some soft, velvety
substance reveals a sleeping snake, who, at the same moment, attacks you
with his poisonous fang, mayhap, fatally.

It is a singular, but well-accredited fact, that these great Southern
swamps have been yearly deteriorating, while the surrounding country has
been growing in civilization. Old writers tell us that the reptile life
now infesting them in such rank luxuriance had s