ers on the wharf opened fire,
and, at the same moment, he was brought-to by the boom, the existence
of which he had not known. The rifle balls were singing round him as
he stood erect, guiding his launch, and he heard the bustle of the men
aboard the ram, and the noise of the great guns as they were got ready.
Backing off, he again went all steam ahead, and actually surged over the
slippery logs of the boom. Meanwhile, on the Albemarle the sailors were
running to quarters, and the soldiers were swarming down to aid in her
defense; and the droning bullets came always thicker through the dark
night. Cushing still stood upright in his little craft, guiding and
controlling her by voice and signal, while in his hands he kept the
ropes which led to the torpedo. As the boat slid forward over the boom,
he brought the torpedo full against the somber side of the huge ram, and
instantly exploded it, almost at the same time that the pivot-gun of the
ram, loaded with grape, was fired point-blank at him not ten yards off.

At once the ram settled, the launch sinking at the same moment, while
Cushing and his men swam for their lives. Most of them sank or were
captured, but Cushing reached mid-stream. Hearing something splashing in
the darkness, he swam toward it, and found that it was one of his crew.
He went to his rescue, and they kept together for some time, but the
sailor's strength gave out, and he finally sank. In the pitch darkness
Cushing could form no idea where he was; and when, chilled through, and
too exhausted to rise to his feet, he finally reached shore, shortly
before dawn, he found that he had swum back and landed but a few
hundred feet below the sunken ram. All that day he remained within easy
musket-shot of where his foes were swarming about the fort and the great
drowned ironclad. He hardly dared move, and until the afternoon he lay
without food, and without protection from the heat or venomous insects.
Then he managed to slip unobserved into the dense swamp, and began to
make his way to the fleet. Toward evening he came out on a small stream,
near a camp of Confederate soldiers. They had moored to the bank a
skiff, and, with equal stealth and daring, he managed to steal this and
to paddle down-stream. Hour after hour he paddled on through the fading
light, and then through the darkness. At last, utterly worn out, he
found the squadron, and was picked up. At once the ships weighed; and
they speedily captured every c