But you do not know that I had a wife.

My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinely good and blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother in miniature.

It was the happiest of happy households.
One night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up out of a sodden lethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air tainted with chloroform! I saw two men in the room, and one was saying to the other, in a hoarse whisper, 'I told her I would, if she made a noise, and as for the child--' The other man interrupted in a low, half-crying voice-- 'You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt them; or I wouldn't have come.' 'Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help rummage.' Both men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged 'nigger' clothes; they had a bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler robber had no thumb on his right hand.

They rummaged around my poor cabin for a moment; the head bandit then said, in his stage whisper-- 'It's a waste of time--he shall tell where it's hid.

Undo his gag, and revive him up.' The other said-- 'All right--provided no clubbing.' 'No clubbing it is, then--provided he keeps still.' They approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a sound of voices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath and listened; the sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came a shout-- 'HELLO, the house! Show a light, we want water.' 'The captain's voice, by G--!' said the stage-whispering ruffian, and both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their bull's-eye as they ran.
The strangers shouted several times more, then rode by--there seemed to be a dozen of the horses--and I heard nothing more.
I struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds.