ments were
precious, he must hasten on.

He found himself near the walls of a fort. On its parapet,
towering gloomily above him, a sentinel could be seen,
pacing steadily to and fro. The fugitive lay almost under
his eyes. A bushy swamp lay not far beyond, but to reach
its shelter he must cross an open space forty feet wide in
full view of this man. The sentinel walks away. Cushing
makes a dash for life. But not half the space is traversed
when his backward glancing eye sees the sentinel about to
turn. Down he goes on his back in the rushes, trusting to
their friendly shelter and the gloom of the night to keep
him from sight.

As he lies there, slowly gaining breath after his excited
effort, four men--two of them officers--pass so close that
they almost tread on his extended form, seeking him, but
failing to see what lies nearly under their feet. They pass
on, talking of the night's startling event. Cushing dares
not rise again. Yet the swamp must be gained, and speedily.
Still flat on his back, he digs his heels into the soft
earth, and pushes himself inch by inch through the rushes,
until, with a warm heart-throb of hope, he feels the welcome
dampness of the swamp.

It proves to be no pleasant refuge. The mire is too deep to
walk in, while above it grow tangled briers and thorny
shrubs, through which he is able to pass only as before, by
lying on his back, and pushing and pulling himself onward.

The hours of the night passed. Day dawned. He had made some
progress, and was now at a safe distance from the fort, but
found himself still in the midst of peril. Near where he lay
a party of soldiers were at work, engaged in planting
obstructions in the river, lest the Union fleet should
follow its daring pioneers to Plymouth, now that the
Albemarle was sunk, and the chief naval defence of the
place gone.

Just back from the river-bank, and not far from where he
lay, a cornfield lifted its yellowed plumes into the air.
Cushing managed to reach its friendly shelter unobserved,
and now, almost for the first time since his escape, stood
upright, and behind the rustling rows made his way past the
soldiers.

To his alarm, as he came near the opposite side of the
field, he found himself face to face with a man who glared
at him in surprise. Well he might, for the late
trimly-dressed lieutenant was now a sorry sight, covered
from head to foot with swamp mud, his clothes rent, and
blood oozing from a hundred scratches