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[431] I nodded approval, and fearing he would precipitate matters, yet knowing that any instant might lead to discovery and be too late, I rode carelessly across the road to Brown, who was on foot, and dismounting, asked him to tighten my girth, during which operation I told him as quietly as possible the position of affairs, and asked him to get up gradually by the side of Mack, communicate with him, and at a signal from me to seize one of the carbines and do his duty as a soldier if he valued his liberty. Brown, though a plucky fellow, was of quite a different quality from Mack. He was terribly frightened, and trembled like a leaf, yet went immediately to his post, and I did not doubt would do his duty well. I rode up again to the side of Lieutenant Whiting, and like an echo from the past came back to me my words of yesterday, “Possibly my turn may come tomorrow.” I engaged him in conversation, and among other things spoke of the prospect of sudden death as one always present in our army life, and the tendency it had to either harden or ameliorate the character according to the quality of the individual. He expressed the opinion which many hold that a brutal man is made more brutal by it, and a refined a:id cultivated man is softened and made more refined by it. I scanned the country closely for the chances of escape if we should succeed in gaining our liberty; knew that to fail or to be recaptured would be instant death, and the responsibility of risking the lives of the whole party, as well as my own, was oppressing me bitterly. I also had an instinctive horror of the shedding of blood, as it were, with my own hands, and the sweet
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