Delirium! it was a mild term for the embracing, the prancing, the Carmagnole-like ecstasy of the half-clad madmen running amuck in the almost unendurable joy of liberation.  Barney knew that this condition of things would never do.  All who bore commissions in the army were selected from the men.  The highest in rank, who proved to be a colonel, was invested with the command, Barney serving as adjutant, and Jones as guide.  The rabble, having made a good meal from the spoil of a sweet-potato patch, pushed forward through the fretwork of fern, rank morass, and verdure, toward security.  But the march was a snail’s pace, as may be imagined.  The men, worn to skeletons by months of captivity, insufficient food, and stinted exercise, were forced to halt often for rest in such toilsome marching as the half-aquatic surface of the swamp involved.

By Thursday noon they were still far from the river.  Foragers were detailed to procure food, and pending their return the wearied band sank to the earth to rest.  In less than two hours the predatory platoon returned with a sybaritic store—­chickens, young lamb, green corn, onions.  Only the stern command of the colonel suppressed a mighty cheer.  When the march was resumed the colonel led the main column south by east.  Jones, with Barney and a dozen men, struck due east.  In answer to Barney’s surprised question, Jones informed him they were to pick up “Wes” Boone by taking that route.  Difficult as the way had been heretofore, it now became laborious in the extreme for this smaller band.  The bottom was all under water, and before they had proceeded a mile half the group were drenched.  In many cases an imprudent plunger was compelled to call a halt to rescue his shoes—­that is, those who were lucky enough to have shoes—­from the deep mud, hidden by a fair green surface of moss or tendrils.  It was a wondrous journey to Barney, The pages of Sindbad alone seemed to have a parallel for the awful mysteries of that long, long flight through jungles of towering timber, whose leaves and bark were as unfamiliar as Brazilian growth to the troops of Pizarro or the Congo vegetation to the French pioneer.  Jones and his comrades saw nothing but the hardships of the march and the delay of the painful detours in the solemn glades.  The direction was kept by compass, many of the men having been supplied with a miniature instrument by the prudent foresight of Mrs. Lanview, who was niggard of neither time nor money in the cause she had at heart.  In spite of every effort a march so swift that it would have exhausted cavalry, Jones’s ranks did not reach the rendezvous until midnight.  At about that hour the exhausted fugitives came suddenly upon a wide, open plain, and far below them, in the valley, a vision of light and life shone through the dark.

“There, boys, we’re at the end of our first stage.  Unless I’m much mistaken, that bit of merry-making yonder will cost the Confederacy a chief.”