ath that it took five hours for that
hour-hand to get round to twelve. But at last it got there, and
then--each second seeming a minute, each minute an hour--it crept slowly
on to one; but still no Judge appeared! Why did he not come? The reason
was obvious. The mules were "quartered six miles out of town," because
he had to see Mr. Davis before letting us go. And Davis had heard of my
nocturnal rambling, and concluded we had come as spies. Or he had, from
my cross-questioning the night before, detected _my_ main object in
coming to Dixie. Either way _my_ doom was sealed. If we were taken as
spies, it was hanging. If held on other grounds, it was imprisonment;
and ten days of Castle Thunder, in my then state of health, would have
ended my mortal career.

I had looked at this alternative before setting out. But then I saw it
afar off; now I stood face to face with it, and--I thought of home,--of
the brave boy who had said to me, "Father, I think you ought to go. If I
was only a man, _I_'d go. If you never come back, _I_'ll take care of
the children."

These thoughts passing in my mind, I rose and paced the room for a few
moments,--then, turning to Javins, said,--

"Will you oblige me by stepping into the hall? My friend and I would
have a few words together."

As he passed out, I said to the Colonel,--

"Ould is more than three hours late! What does it mean?"

All this while he had sat, his spectacles on his nose, and his chair
canted against the window-sill, absorbed in the newspapers. Occasionally
he would look up to comment on something he was reading; but not a
movement of his face, nor a glance of his eye, had betrayed that he was
conscious of Ould's delay, or of my extreme restlessness. When I said
this, he took off his spectacles, and, quietly rubbing the glasses with
his handkerchief, replied,--

"It looks badly, but--_I_ ask no odds of them. We may have to show we
are men. We have tried to serve the country. That is enough. Let them
hang us, if they like."

"Colonel," I exclaimed, with a strong inclination to hug him, "you are a
trump! the bravest man I ever knew!"

"I trust in God,--that is all," was his reply.

This was all he said,--but his words convey no idea of the sublime
courage which shone in his eye and lighted up his every feature. I felt
rebuked, and turned away to hide my emotion. As I did so, my attention
was arrested by a singular spectacle in a neighboring street. Coming
down the hil