There was some influence that fretted him very much at the time, which I have never heard explained. It was well known that he was most eager for the fight to begin.

Early one bright morning our lookout spluttered out something, to which the officer on deck at the time--who was Lieutenant Queen, at present commandant at the Washington Navy Yard, and to whom I was talking at that instant--startled me by singing in my ear:

"Where away?"

The fellow above said something about two points on our port bow.

Mr. Queen left me abruptly to report to the captain, who soon appeared on deck. I climbed up to a good place from which to look out, and gazed in the direction in which Mr. Queen and the captain were pointing, but failed to see anything myself.

Orders were issued to prepare a little boat that was attached to the Powhattan, as a sort of dispatch boat, and an officer, whose name was Brown--a fat, jolly young man whom Captain Porter seemed to think highly of--was put in charge.

This little craft hoisted sail and went dancing about on the water like a sea-bird. By this time two steamers were in sight, approaching us.

Who they were and what they were after was just what everybody wanted to know; the old sailors, who are always croakers, had any quantity of ridiculous stories about their errand and our rapidly approaching fate.

Signals went up on Fort Pickens, and I discovered, _first_, that signals were being made from the Rebel Batteries, in rear of their Forts, and reported the fact, the circumstance awaking in Captain Porter a lively interest.

Tho little sea-bird, with Mr. Brown, went out toward the approaching ships, as if to meet them; orders were given by somebody, I suppose, but I failed to hear them, to weigh anchor, which was quietly done; then, instead of the ships halting to communicate with Mr. Brown's signals, they went nearer to the Rebel Batteries, while the black smoke poured out of the chimneys, and the paddle-wheels whirled around.

All at once I jumped two feet high, because a gun behind me went off.

Still the wheels went round and round, and the water was foaming in their wake. All hands and eyes were on the ship in the lead, when boom went another gun; and there is where I saw the first hostile gun fired.

There was a splash in the water some distance this side of the ship, but in her front, then another splash on the same line further on; this was the first shot across her bow, and it had the immediate effect of stopping those paddle-wheels as suddenly as if she had been hit in the belly.

She "hove too"--there was a long confab with the captain of the boat, which turned out to be ships from Mobile bound to Pensacola with supplies--appealed from Porter to the old admiral, and the end of it all was, the two boats loaded with supplies and probably ammunition, were not permitted to go on past the Fort inside the bay to Pensacola, as Captain Porter decidedly protested against it, and they were escorted back to Mobile.

They were not war ships, and at that time some of our officers had peculiar ideas of the rights of Rebels: as, for instance, the refusal to allow my colored boy, Friday, to remain at the Fort because he was property, etc.

In our mess I think there were four of as jolly, good-hearted tars as may be found in any navy, who vied with each other in their efforts to make my stay with them as comfortable as possible. I presume my popularity was increased a little bit, from the fact that I really couldn't swallow the gill of grog, nor use tobacco, that was issued to every one who wanted it, and my portion was scrupulously drawn and assigned to our mess.

I was here first introduced to sea biscuit, which you know is the naval term of S. O. B. Every old soldier will know the meaning of those cabalistic letters.

One fellow, who was so droll that he kept the mess in a roar all the time, insisted that some of the sea biscuit then being issued by the commissary had been left over from the Revolutionary War. They were really as hard as a board; it was often as good as a show to watch the antics of Jack trying to weld them, like iron, at the galley range, or to put them under the rollers of the big cannon for a chuck stone.

The pickled pork he declared was alive with worms, and insisted upon taking me up the main mast, to prove to me that great chunks of it were able to crawl up the polished mast to the fore-top. While eating our grub (as they call it), when the cook had prepared a particularly nice dish of scouce (I think that's the way it's spelled), Jack would pretend to be so hungry that he and another chum would get on all fours and squeal for all the world like a lot of hogs in a pen.

Every day there would be signals exchanged between our ship and the others, or with Fort Pickens, and occasionally boats from the other vessels would come to our side bringing officers to visit our officers.

For some days my daily life was spent in this way. I began to imagine, from some of the yarns that I was compelled to overhear from the sailors at night, that something was going wrong with me; nothing had been intimated to me directly by any of the officers, who were uniformly courteous, excepting, perhaps, Lieutenant Perry, the executive officer who had general charge of everything. On another occasion he had picked me up sharply for daring to handle a marine glass that I saw on the bridge one day and elevated toward the Rebels.

The sailors, who, of course went with the boats to the fort as oarsmen, must have brought back some exaggerated stories about me, judging from their actions and talk. If any of those who may read my story have ever been compelled to listen to old sailors' or old soldiers' stories and croakings, they will be able to sympathize with me in my misery. I can think of no comparison that will approach so near my conception of the situation as that of being caged in an insane asylum with a crowd of cranky old lunatics, and being compelled to hear all they have to say without being able to escape from the horror.

This Lieutenant Perry was, I believe, a nephew of Commodore Perry, of Lake Erie fame, and perhaps a very capable officer, though I do not recall having heard his name during the war, which followed so closely.

He was evidently prejudiced against me from the first day, probably because I declined to be interviewed by him.

One day I was surprised by having him call me aside and commencing a conversation about the war, during which I expressed some decided opinions about the earnestness and sincerity of the Rebels. And I probably gave vent to my disgust at the permitting my colored boy to be sent back to slavery and possibly punishment.

A short time after this I was invited to the captain's cabin. On entering, I found Mr. Perry and the captain in consultation. After a pleasant greeting, Captain Porter said:

"We have just learned that the Rebels have a lot of big guns at Montgomery which they are to send to Pensacola." When he got this far, I interrupted him to say, "That is hardly correct, as I had been in Montgomery, and they had no guns of any kind there." Perry spoke up and said they meant Mobile. Porter continued, smilingly: "Yes, it's Mobile, of course. Well, we want to spike those guns right there." Not for a moment thinking they were putting up a job on me, I looked anxiously in Porter's face for a clue to his meaning, in thus talking to me. Looking me squarely in the eye, he said:

"Now the government pays handsomely for this service," patting his pants pockets to make some keys rattle. Still I did not like the appearance of things, and perhaps too abruptly interrupted to say:

"Yes, I know; but the Rebels aren't going to let any one do that."

Then ensued a long confab, in which Lieutenant Perry did most of the talking.

Captain Porter finally said to me, with a peculiar look:

"Now I have some little file-shaped things, just made for that purpose; all a man has to do is to quietly drop one of these into the vent, and they don't even know it's there, till they want to fire the gun."

This looked plausible, and I began to feel as if I'd like to try that simple little trick, but I told him candidly that I couldn't undertake it; that they would surely hang me, if caught; and that it wouldn't be well for me to run the risk just then.

"Oh," says Perry, "we will man a boat and land you on the beach ten miles from Pensacola."

"Yes," spoke up Captain Porter, "we will put you ashore any place you want to go."

Without a moment's thought, except a desire to do any service for my country, I said to them, "All right, I'll go."

I knew nothing whatever at this time of the demands that were being made by the rebel authorities upon the Fort to have me surrendered on a civil process, and on the same general principles that had induced the Fort officers to return the colored boy, was being brought to bear in my case. It seems the officers of the Fort got rid of the knotty point by informing the Rebel flag-of-truce boat that I was out of their control, and in the hands of the naval authorities.

Application had been made to the flag-ship of the squadron, that being the proper headquarters, but it seems that in some way Captain Porter's instructions were direct and more recent than had been received by the admiral, whose name, if I remember aright, was Adams or Alden; but of this I am not positive. However, there was some sort of a conflict of authority between Porter and the Admiral, and not altogether a cordial feeling between them, as there were no visits or courtesies being exchanged between them, as was customary in such situations.

I had myself seen from the deck of the Powhattan a little tug-boat bobbing out to the Admiral's ship, but had no idea, of course, that I was being the subject of negotiations, which were being carried on by the opposing forces through their flags-of-truce.

The Admiral, who had desired the ships from Mobile to pass in unmolested, was quite indifferent to my fate, and did not deign to communicate with Mr. Porter or myself. No doubt if I had been aboard his ship instead of Admiral Porter's, the true story of this episode would never have been written; as I should have been surrendered, as a matter of _courtesy_ to the Rebels, who would have further extended the courtesy--at the end of a rope.

CHAPTER VI.

ADMIRAL PORTER SAVES THE BOY'S LIFE--INTERVIEW WITH THE REBEL FLAG-OF-TRUCE OFFICERS, WHO CLAIM HIM FOR A VICTIM--SCENES ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR--RETURN HOME BY SEA--RECEPTION IN NEW YORK--TELEGRAPH ACQUAINTANCES--NEW YORK PAPERS RECORD THE ADVENTURE IN FULL PAGE.

It will be seen that the Admiral was willing that I should be surrendered, and my life hung for several days in a balance, which, thank God, was held by Captain Porter.

Perry, knowing of these negotiations, was himself convinced that I was a Rebel Spy, whom they wanted to get back, and had kept a close watch on my actions; and, I presume, had set half the ship's crew to pick me up on any little circumstance which would serve to confirm his suspicions that I was in the service of the rebellion.

One day I was sitting on the "back stairs," or on the platform of the gangway aft the wheel-house, and, as the vessel had swung round, I could, from my location, see right over the water to the rebel lines. My position happened to be somewhat secluded, and I had in my hands a scrap of an old New York _Ledger_, that one of the tars had loaned me. I saw that I was being watched by Perry, who was in quiet consultation with the officer of the deck. A marine with a loaded musket had been ordered to look sharp that I did not fly over to the Rebs, I suppose.

While in this situation the thought burst upon me that I was a prisoner, suspected by my own friends of being a spy in their camp.

The interview that I had had in the cabin, with Captain Porter and Lieutenant Perry, the proposed trip to Mobile, with a dozen other little incidents, rushed through my brain at once, but I was comforted by the thought that the War Department would acknowledge my services. After this feeling had passed away from my mind to some extent, I recalled with bitterness some of Lieutenant Perry's actions and talks with me.

Carelessly glancing around to see that he was still on deck, I wrote on the margin of that old paper some words that expressed, in language more emphatic than politic, the opinion I entertained of a certain officer, and whose conduct I should take care would be reported to the ears of the Navy Department. Before I had finished, a hand was laid on my shoulder; another reached down and snatched the paper from my hand; the young officer, whom I had seen talking to Perry but a few moments previously, said:

"Ah, sketching, are you?" as he took the paper and handed it to Mr.

Perry, who was at his back, and he read with a flushed face the ugly comments on his brutality to a boy prisoner, who had done more for his country in one night than he would accomplish in his life-time.