"Halloa, Diggs! what are you doing here?" cried Captain Tompkins, who could not restrain his laughter. Mr. Diggs had been performing leap after leap, in his vain endeavors to get away, ejaculating all the while:
"Oh, Lordy, Lordy! I know I shall be killed, I know I shall be killed!"
At the sound of a familiar voice, he looked around, and, discovering who his captors were, he sprang forward and threw his arms around the neck of the captain, crying:
"Oh! Abner, Abner, Abner, my dearest friend Abner, you will not let me be killed! Oh! say you will not let me be killed! Although I was persuaded into the rebel army, I am not a Confederate. I have always thought that it was wrong to fight under any but the flag of Washington and Marion. Oh! don't let them kill me! Oh, Abner, Abner, for Heaven's sake, say you will protect me. I have suffered death a thousand times since I entered this unholy cause."
Abner, still laughing, assured him that he should not be injured, that he should be treated as a prisoner of war.
Corporal Diggs, assuring men and officers that there was no stronger Union man living than he, that he was ready to enlist and fight until he died for the Union, followed the troops out of the house. The widow fixed a gaze of astonishment on the "brave soldier," upon "whom the fate of the South rested," and when she heard his imploring tones and his avowed determination to fight for the Union till he died, her proud lips curled with scorn, and, without a word, she passed from the room.
The corporal mounted January, and rode away in good spirits toward the Union camp.
Mr. Diggs fulfilled his determination to enlist in the Union army, insisting, the very day after his capture, on becoming a member of Abner's company. Abner told him that he had better consider the matter, but he declared he needed no further time; that now he was freed from error, and the pernicious influence of Seth Williams, who had persuaded him into espousing an unholy cause, and having wronged his beloved country by taking up arms against it, he wanted to atone by fighting for it. As the Union cause needed soldiers, Mr. Diggs, not corporal now, did not offer his services in vain. He was at once enrolled, and the same day the regiment started, by forced marches, to join the Union forces under Generals Scott and McDowell, where Mr. Patrick Henry Diggs was likely to see service in earnest.