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 in his skin.

He had no reason for alarm; the man was a negro; the dusky face showed sympathy under its surprise.

“I am a Union soldier,” said Cushing, feeling in his heart that no slave would betray him.

“One o’ dem as was in de town last night?” asked the negro.

“Yes.  Have you been there?  Can you tell me anything?”

“No, massa; on’y I’s been tole dat dar’s pow’ful bad work dar, an’ de sojers is bilin’ mad.”

Further words passed, in the end the negro agreeing to go to the town, see for himself what harm had been done, and bring back word.  Cushing would wait for him under shelter of the corn.

The old negro set out on his errand, glad of the opportunity to help one of “Massa Linkum’s sojers.”  The lieutenant secreted himself as well as he could, and waited.  An hour passed.  Then steps and the rustling of the dry leaves of the corn-stalks were heard.  The fugitive peeped from his ambush.  To his joy he saw before him the smiling face of his dusky messenger.

“What news?” he demanded, stepping joyfully forward.

“Mighty good news, massa,” said the negro, with a laugh.  “Dat big iron ship’s got a hole in her bottom big ’nough to drive a wagon in.  She’s deep in de mud, ’longside de wharf, an’ folks say she’ll neber git up ag’in.”

“Good!  She’s done for, then?  My work is accomplished?—­Now, old man, tell me how I must go to get back to the ships.”

The negro gave what directions he could, and the fugitive took to the swamp again, after a grateful good-by to his dusky friend and a warm “God-speed” from the latter.  It was into a thicket of tangled shrubs that Lieutenant Cushing now plunged, so dense that he could not see ten feet in advance.  But the sun was visible overhead and served him as a guide.  Hour by hour he dragged himself painfully onward.  At two o’clock in the afternoon he found himself on the banks of a narrow creek, a small affluent of the Roanoke.

He crouched in the bushes on the creek-side, peering warily before him.  Voices reached his ears.  Across the stream he saw men.  A minute’s observation apprised him of the situation.  The men he saw to be a group of soldiers, seven in number, who had just landed from a boat in the stream.  As he watched, they tied their boat to the root of a tree, and then turned into a path that led upward.  Reaching a point at some distance from the river, they stopped, sat down, and began to eat their dinner.