rmittent
fever, the first assistant rheumatism, and the second assistant
congestive chills; non-swimmers would have predicted exhaustion, and
swimmers cramp; and all this before coming within bullet-range of any
hospitalities on the other shore. But I knew the folly of most alarms
about reptiles and fishes; man's imagination peoples the water with many
things which do not belong there, or prefer to keep out of his way, if
they do; fevers and congestions were the surgeon's business, and I
always kept people to their own department; cramp and exhaustion were
dangers I could measure, as I had often done; bullets were a more
substantial danger, and I must take the chance,--if a loon could dive at
the flash, why not I? If I were once ashore, I should have to cope with
the Rebels on their own ground, which they knew better than I; but the
water was my ground, where I, too, had been at home from boyhood.

I swam as swiftly and softly as I could, although it seemed as if water
never had been so still before. It appeared impossible that anything
uncanny should hide beneath that lovely mirror; and yet when some
floating wisp of reeds suddenly coiled itself around my neck, or some
unknown thing, drifting deeper, coldly touched my foot, it gave that
undefinable sense of shudder which every swimmer knows, and which
especially appeals to the imagination by night. Sometimes a slight sip
of brackish water would enter my lips,--for I naturally tried to swim as
low as possible,--and then would follow a slight gasping and contest
against choking, such as seemed to me a perfect convulsion; for I
suppose the tendency to choke and sneeze is always enhanced by the
circumstance that one's life may depend on keeping still, just as
yawning becomes irresistible where to yawn would be social ruin, and
just as one is sure to sleep in church, if one sits in a conspicuous
pew. At other times, some unguarded motion would create a splashing
which seemed, in the tension of my senses, to be loud enough to be heard
at Richmond, although it really mattered not, since there are fishes in
those rivers which make as much noise on special occasions as if they
were misguided young whales.

As I drew near the opposite shore, the dark causeway projected more and
more distinctly, to my fancy at least, and I swam more softly still,
utterly uncertain as to how far, in the stillness of air and water, my
phosphorescent course could be traced by eye or ear. A slight r