Soon, I repeated the suggestion, and they repeated the answer. It was no time to stand upon forms. I jumped into the river--twelve or fifteen feet below the top of our barge. They rolled over a hay-bale for me. I climbed upon it, and found it a surprisingly comfortable means of navigation. At last, free from the instinctive dread of mutilation by splinters, which had constantly haunted me, I now felt that if wounded at all it must, at least, be by a clean shot. The thought was a great relief.
With a dim suspicion--not the ripe and perfect knowledge afterward obtained--that clothing was scarce in the Southern Confederacy, I removed my boots, tied them together with my watch-guard, and fastened them to one of the hoops of the bale. Taking off my coat, I secured it in the same manner.
I was about swimming away in a vague, blundering determination not to be captured, when, for the first time in my life, I saw a shot coming toward me. I had always been sceptical on this point. Many persons had averred to me that they could see shots approaching; but remembering that such a missile flying toward a man with a scream and a rush would not quicken his vision, and judging from my own experience, I supposed they must be deceived.
Now, far up the river I saw a shot coming with vivid distinctness. How round, smooth, shining, and black it looked, ricochetting along, plunging into the water, throwing up great jets of spray, bounding like a schoolboy's ball, and then skimming the river again! It struck about four feet from my hay-bale, which was now a few yards from the burning barge.
The great sheet of water which dashed up quite obscured me from Colburn and "Junius," who, upon the bows of the barge, were just bidding me adieu. At first they thought the shot an extinguisher. But it did me no greater harm than partially to overturn my hay-bale and dip me into the river. A little more or less dampness just then was not of much consequence. It was the last shot which I saw or heard. The Rebels now ceased firing, and shouted--
Learning that we had none, they sent out a yawl. I looked about for a plank, but could find none adapted to a long voyage. Rebel pickets were on both sides of the river, and Rebel batteries lined it ten or twelve miles below, at a point which, by floating, one could reach at daylight. Surrender seemed the only alternative.