The night was very dark, so that the rebels in the boat could not distinguish the uniform of those who had applied for a passage on the schooner. Perhaps Tom Somers’s experience in the Blue Ridge and on the Shenandoah had improved his strategic ability, so that his words and his manner seemed plausible. But as strategy and cunning always owe their success to the comparative stupidity of the victims, Tom and his companions gained the half-deck of the schooner more by the palpable blundering of her crew than through the brilliancy of their own scheme.  
Tom did not stop, in the midst of the exciting enterprise, to determine the particular reason of his success, as we, his humble biographer, have done. He was on the enemy’s ground, and confronting the enemy’s forces, and logic was as much out of place as rebellion in a free republican country. He was closely followed by Hapgood, and at a later period by Fred Pemberton. The nerves of the latter were not remarkably steady, and as he stepped on board the schooner, he neglected to take the painter with him; and the consequence was, that the boat went adrift. It is good generalship to keep the line of retreat open; and Fred’s neglect had deprived them of all means of retiring from the scene of action. The only alternative was to fight their way through, and find safety in success.
 
To Tom’s reply, that the party were Massachusetts soldiers, the rebel who had acted as spokesman for the crew, uttered a volley of oaths, expressive of his indignation and disgust at the sudden check which had been given to their prosperous voyage.
 
“Surrender!” repeated Tom, in energetic tones.
 
Two of the rebels at the stern discharged their pistols in answer to the summons—a piece of impudence which our Massachusetts soldiers could not tolerate; and they returned the fire. The secessionists evidently carried revolvers; and a turn of the barrel enabled them to fire a second volley, which the soldiers were unable to do, for they had no time to load their guns.
 
“O!” groaned Fred, as he sunk down upon the half-deck. “I’m hit.”
 
“We can’t stand this, Hapgood,” said Tom, fiercely, as he leaped into the midst of the party in the standing room. “Let’s give them the bayonet.”
 
“Give it to ’em, Tom!” replied the veteran, as he placed himself by the side of his young companion.
 
“Will you surrender?” demanded Tom, as he thrust vigorously with his bayonet.
 
“We surrender,” replied one of the men; but it was not the one who had spoken before, for he had dropped off his seat upon the bottom of the boat.
 
“Give up your pistols, then,” added Hapgood. “You look out for the boat, Tom, and I will take care of these fellows.”
 
Tom sprang to the position which had been occupied by the spokesman of the party, and grasping the foresheet and the tiller of the boat, he soon brought her up to the wind. Seating himself in the stern, he assumed the management of the schooner, while Hapgood busied himself in taking the pistols from the hands of the rebels, and exploring their pockets, in search of other dangerous weapons.
 
“How are you, Fred?” shouted Tom, when the pressing business of the moment had been disposed of. “Are you much hurt?”
 
“I’m afraid my time’s most up,” replied he, faintly.
 
“Where are you hit?”
 
“In the face; the ball went through my head, I suppose,” he added, in tones that were hardly audible, in the warring of the December blast.
 
“Keep up a good heart, Fred, and we will soon be ashore. Have you got an easy place?”
 
“No, the water dashes over me.”
 
“Can’t you move him aft, Hapgood?”
 
“Pretty soon; when I get these fellows fixed,” replied the veteran, who had cut the rope nearest to his hands, and was securing the arms of the prisoners behind them.
 
“There is no fear of them now. We have got two revolvers apiece, and we can have it all our own way, if they show fight.”
 
But Hapgood had bound the rebels by this time, and with tender care he lifted his wounded companion down into the standing room, and made him as comfortable as the circumstances would permit.
 
“Now, where are we, Hapgood?” asked Tom, who had been vainly peering ahead to discover some familiar object by which to steer. I can’t see the first thing.”
 
“I don’t know where we are,” replied Hapgood. “I never was much of a sailor, and I leave the navigating all to you.”
 
“I can navigate well enough, if I knew where we were,” added Tom, who had thus far been utterly unable to ascertain the “ship’s position.”
 
During the brief struggle for the possession of the schooner, she had drifted some distance, which had caused the new commander to lose his bearings. The shore they had just left had disappeared, as though it had been swallowed up by an earthquake. No lights were allowed on shore, where they could be seen from the river, for they afforded so many targets to the artillerymen in the rebel batteries. The more Tom tried to discover a familiar object to steer by, the more it seemed as though the land and everything else had been cut adrift, and emigrated to foreign parts. Those who have been in a boat in a very dark night, or in a dense fog, will be able to appreciate the bewilderment of the skipper of the captured schooner.
 
“Look out, Tom, that you don’t run us into some of those rebel batteries,” said Hapgood, after he had watched the rapid progress of the boat for a few moments. “A shot from a thirty-two pounder would be a pill we couldn’t swallow.”
 
“No danger of that, Hapgood,” answered Tom, confidently.
 
“I don’t know about that, my boy,” answered the veteran, in a tone heavy with dire anxiety.
 
“I know it. The schooner was running with the wind on her starboard quarter when we boarded her. We are now close-hauled, and of course we can’t make the shore on the other side while we are on this tack.”
 
Well, I don’t know much about it, Tom, but if you say its all right, I’m satisfied; that’ all. I’d trust you just as far as I would General McClennon, and you know we all b’lieve in him.”
 
“What are you going to do with us?” asked one of the rebels, who be............