His pursuers came up to the spot where he had made his plunge into the
water; here they paused, evidently at fault. He could hear the sound of
their footsteps and voices, and judge of their movements by the gleam of
the torches many of them carried.
Some now took one direction, some another, and he perceived with joy that
his stratagem had been at least partially successful. One party, however,
soon followed him into the swamp. He could hear Spriggs urging them on and
anathematizing him as "a scoundrel, robber, burglar, murderer, who ought
to be swung up to the nearest tree."
Every thicket was undergoing a thorough search, heads were thrown back and
torches held high that eager blacks eyes might scan the tree-tops, and
Jackson began to grow sick with the almost certainty of being taken, as
several stout negroes drew nearer and nearer his chosen hiding-place.
He uttered a low, breathed imprecation upon his useless right arm, and the
man whose sure aim had made it so. "But for you," he muttered, grinding
his teeth, "I'd sell my life dear."
But the rain, which had slackened for a time, again poured down in
torrents, the torches sputtered and went out, and the pursuers turned back
in haste to gain the firmer soil, where less danger was to be apprehended
from alligators, panthers, and poisonous reptiles.
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