- end_line
- 663
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 610
- text
- “No ship,” says Israel, hurrying on.
“Stop.”
“If you will attend to your business, I will endeavor to attend to
mine,” replies Israel coolly. And next minute he lets grow his wings
again; flying, one dare say, at the rate of something less than thirty
miles an hour.
“Stop thief!” is now the cry. Numbers rushed from the roadside houses.
After a mile’s chase, the poor panting deer is caught.
Finding it was no use now to prevaricate, Israel boldly confesses
himself a prisoner-of-war. The officer, a good fellow as it turned out,
had him escorted back to the inn; where, observing to the landlord that
this must needs be a true-blooded Yankee, he calls for liquors to
refresh Israel after his run. Two soldiers are then appointed to guard
him for the present. This was towards evening; and up to a late hour at
night, the inn was filled with strangers crowding to see the Yankee
rebel, as they politely termed him. These honest rustics seemed to
think that Yankees were a sort of wild creatures, a species of ’possum
or kangaroo. But Israel is very affable with them. That liquor he drank
from the hand of his foe, has perhaps warmed his heart towards all the
rest of his enemies. Yet this may not be wholly so. We shall see. At
any rate, still he keeps his eye on the main chance—escape. Neither the
jokes nor the insults of the mob does he suffer to molest him. He is
cogitating a little plot to himself.
It seems that the good officer—not more true to the king his master
than indulgent towards the prisoner which that same loyalty made—had
left orders that Israel should be supplied with whatever liquor he
wanted that night. So, calling for the can again and again, Israel
invites the two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length, a wag of the
company proposes that Israel should entertain the public with a jig, he
(the wag) having heard that the Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A
fiddle is brought in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut
to think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be diverted at
the expense of an unfortunate prisoner, Israel, while jigging it up and
down, still conspires away at his private plot, resolving ere long to
give the enemy a touch of certain Yankee steps, as yet undreamed of in
their simple philosophy. They would not permit any cessation of his
dancing till he had danced himself into a perfect sweat, so that the
drops fell from his lank and flaxen hair. But Israel, with much of the
gentleness of the dove, is not wholly without the wisdom of the
serpent. Pleased to see the flowing bowl, he congratulates himself that
his own state of perspiration prevents it from producing any
intoxicating effect upon him.
Late at night the company break up. Furnished with a pair of handcuffs,
the prisoner is laid on a blanket spread upon the floor at the side of
the bed in which his two keepers are to repose. Expressing much
gratitude for the blanket, with apparent unconcern, Israel stretches
his legs. An hour or two passes. All is quiet without.
- title
- Chunk 4