otherwise he
should not have troubled himself so much with an unbidden task. But he
was the hunter and she the hunted, and he was alive now with the spirit
of the chase.

She turned toward the northwest, where the lines of earthwork were
thinnest, where, in fact, a single person might slip between them in the
darkness, and Prescott no longer had any doubt that his first surmise
was correct. Moreover, she was wary to the last degree, looking
cautiously on every side and stopping now and then to see that she was
not followed. A fine moon sometimes shed its full rays upon her, and she
seemed then to Prescott to be made of silver mist.

He, too, was most wary, knowing the need of it, and allowed the
distance between them to lengthen, clinging meanwhile to the shadow of
buildings and fences with such effect that when she looked back she
never saw the man behind.

They passed into the suburbs, low and straggling, little groups of negro
cabins stringing out now and then in the darkness, and the woman, save
for her occasional pauses to see if she were pursued, kept a straight
and rapid course as if she knew her mind and the way.

They came at last to a spot where there was a small break in the
earthworks, and Prescott saw the sentinels walking their beats, gun on
shoulder. Then the fugitive paused in the shadow of bushes and high
grass and watched attentively.

The pursuit had become curiously unreal to Prescott. It seemed to him
that he was in the presence of the mysterious and weird, but he was
resolute to follow, and he wished only that she should resume her
flight.

When the sentinels were some distance apart she slid between like a
shadow, unseen and unheard, and Prescott, an adept at pursuit, quickly
followed. They were now beyond the first line of earthworks, though yet
within the ring of Richmond's outer defenses, but a single person with
ordinary caution might pass the latter, too.

He followed her through bushes and clumps of trees which hung like
patches of black on the shoulders of the hills, and he shortened the
space between them, not caring now if she saw him, as he no longer had
any doubt of her purpose. He looked back once and saw behind him an
almost imperceptible glow which he knew was the city, and then on the
left beheld another light, the mark of a Confederate fortress, set there
as a guard upon the ways.

She turned to the right, leaving the fortress behind, passing into
country still more des