Most probably yes, and perhaps he had remained at the Hardy house, still incapacitated from duty by the blow I had struck him--an interesting invalid.

Even this thought did not trouble me as it might have done otherwise, for I believed Billie had already begun to see the real man behind the fellow's handsome face; if so, then time and companionship would only widen the breach between them--perhaps my memory also.
It was a hard three hours' travel, practically feeling a passage through the darkness, for the narrow path extended but little beyond a mile, after losing which we stumbled forward through a maze of rock and underbrush.

This finally became so dense that the negro veered to the left, where there was a grassy ledge, along which we made more rapid progress, although facing greater danger of discovery.

However, the night was black, and to any picket looking down from above the ravine must have appeared a dark, impenetrable void, while our feet in the grass scarcely made a sound.

Once we saw a moving figure above us, barely visible against the sky-line, and halted breathlessly, every eye uplifted, until the apparition vanished; and once, warned by the cracking of a twig, we lay flat on our faces while a spectral company went past us on foot, heading at right-angles across our path.