www.freeclassicebooks.com

Chapter 8

Delcarte and Taylor were now in mid-stream, coming toward us, and I called to

them to keep aloof until I knew whether the intentions of my captors were friendly

or otherwise. My good men wanted to come on and annihilate the blacks. But

there were upward of a hundred of the latter, all well armed, and so I commanded

Delcarte to keep out of harm's way, and stay where he was till I needed him.

A young officer called and beckoned to them. But they refused to come, and so

he gave orders that resulted in my hands being secured at my back, after which

the company marched away, straight toward the east.

I noticed that the men wore spurs, which seemed strange to me. But when, late

in the afternoon, we arrived at their encampment, I discovered that my captors

were cavalrymen.

In the center of a plain stood a log fort, with a blockhouse at each of its four

corners. As we approached, I saw a herd of cavalry horses grazing under guard

outside the walls of the post. They were small, stocky horses, but the telltale

saddle galls proclaimed their calling. The flag flying from a tall staff inside the

palisade was one which I had never before seen nor heard of.

We marched directly into the compound, where the company was dismissed, with

the exception of a guard of four privates, who escorted me in the wake of the

young officer. The latter led us across a small parade ground, where a battery of

light field guns was parked, and toward a log building, in front of which rose the

flagstaff.

I was escorted within the building into the presence of an old negro, a fine looking

man, with a dignified and military bearing. He was a colonel, I was to learn later,

and to him I owe the very humane treatment that was accorded me while I

remained his prisoner.

He listened to the report of his junior, and then turned to question me, but with

no better results than the former had accomplished. Then he summoned an

orderly, and gave some instructions. The soldier saluted, and left the room,

returning in about five minutes with a hairy old white man--just such a savage,

primeval-looking fellow as I had discovered in the woods the day that Snider had

disappeared with the launch.

The colonel evidently expected to use the fellow as interpreter, but when the

savage addressed me it was in a language as foreign to me as was that of the

The Lost Continent