“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 began to exhibit some interest in the fate of the schooner.

“I suppose you will find good quarters in Fort McHenry,” replied Tom.  “Where do you belong?”

“In Baltimore.”