Four of our men were sitting in a guardhouse at the British camp.
After noon mess a teamster drove up with a big wagon. Guards came
and shackled us in pairs, D'ri being wrist to wrist with me. They
put a chain and ball on D'ri's leg also. I wondered why, for no
other was treated with like respect. Then they bundled us all
into the wagon, now surrounded by impatient cavalry. They put a
blindfold over the eyes of each prisoner, and went away at a lively
pace. We rode a long time, as it seemed to me, and by and by I
knew we had come to a city, for I could hear the passing of many
wagons and the murmur of a crowd. Some were shouting, "Shoot the
d--d Yankees!" and now and then a missile struck among us. There
is nothing so heartless and unthinking as a crowd, the world over.
I could tell presently, by the creak of the evener and the stroke
of the hoofs, that we were climbing a long hill. We stopped
shortly; then they began helping us out. They led us forward a few
paces, the chain rattling on a stone pavement. When we heard the
bang of an iron door behind us, they unlocked the heavy fetter.
This done, they led us along a gravel walk and over a sounding
stretch of boards,--a bridge, I have always thought,--through
another heavy door and down a winding flight of stone steps. They
led us on through dark passages, over stone paving, and halted us,
after a long walk, letting our eyes free. We were in black
darkness. There were two guards before and two behind us bearing
candles. They unshackled us, and opened a lattice door of heavy
iron, bidding us enter. I knew then that we were going into a
dungeon, deep under the walls of a British fort somewhere on the
frontier. A thought stung me as D'ri and I entered this black hole
and sat upon a heap of straw. Was this to be the end of our
fighting and of us?