Confederacy,
she was observed and chased by one of our vessels, a swifter sailer,
even, than herself. The war ship closed rapidly upon her. She sought
the protection of the guns of Fort Fisher, which opened venomously on the
chaser. They did not stop her, though they were less than half a mile
away. In another minute she would have sent the Rebel vessel to the
bottom of the sea, by a broadside from her heavy guns, but the Captain of
the latter turned her suddenly, and ran her high up on the beach,
wrecking his vessel, but saving the much more valuable cargo. Our vessel
then hauled off, and as night fell, quiet was restored. At midnight two
boat-loads of determined men, rowing with muffled oars moved silently out
from the blockader towards the beached vessel. In their boats they had
some cans of turpentine, and several large shells. When they reached the
blockade-runner they found all her crew gone ashore, save one watchman,
whom they overpowered before he could give the alarm. They cautiously
felt their way around, with the aid of a dark lantern, secured the ship's
chronometer, her papers and some other desired objects. They then
saturated with the turpentine piles of combustible material, placed about
the vessel to the best advantage, and finished by depositing the shells
where their explosion would ruin the machinery. All this was done so
near to the fort that the sentinels on the parapets could be heard with
the greatest distinctness as they repeated their half-hourly cry of
"All's well." Their preparations completed, the daring fellows touched
matches to the doomed vessel in a dozen places at once, and sprang into
their boats. The flames instantly enveloped the ship, and showed the
gunners the incendiaries rowing rapidly away. A hail of shot beat the
water into a foam around the boats, but their good fortune still attended
them, and they got back without losing a man.

The wind at length calmed sufficiently to encourage our Captain to
venture out, and we were soon battling with the rolling waves, far out of
sight of land. For awhile the novelty of the scene fascinated me. I was
at last on the ocean, of which I had heard, read and imagined so much.
The creaking cordage, the straining engine, the plunging ship, the wild
waste of tumbling billows, everyone apparently racing to where our
tossing bark was struggling to maintain herself, all had an entrancing
interest for me, and I tried to recall Byron's s