toward carrying them out until
after dark. The day was not a favorable one for a movement on the part
of the Union forces, for a thick fog came rolling in from the sea and
covered the waters of the Sound. Once during the forenoon it lifted long
enough to disclose the rebel fortifications on the Island, and the
double rows of piles and sunken ships through which the _Fairy Belle_
had sailed a few weeks before, with Commodore Lynch's eight boats above,
and then it settled down again thicker than ever. But two of the Union
commanders at least were not idle, and when darkness came to conceal its
movements, the expedition which they had quietly prepared during the day
put off for the shore. It consisted of four cutters filled with
small-armed men, two being from Captain Benton's vessel and the others
from the gunboat that lay next astern. The work of securing the pilots
was to be done by two squads of twenty men each, one under command of
Captain Benton's executive officer, the second being led by an acting
ensign from the other vessel. Mr. Watkins's boat was first in the line
and the boy Jonas, who crouched in the bow of his cutter, was the guide
and pilot.

A second expedition, which put off from the flag-ship an hour later,
held straight for the shore and stopped when it got there; but the one
in whose fortunes we are at present most interested did not stop. It
turned into the mouth of a little river which was seldom navigated, even
by the fishing and trading boats that were so numerous in the Sound. It
was known as Middle River; and if Jonas, who had lived upon its banks
ever since he could remember, had been asked how long it was and where
it took its rise, he would have been obliged to say that he did not
know. But he did know that by following some of its numerous tributaries
the expedition could pass in the rear of the forts at Plymouth into
Seven Mile Creek, and land within a few hundred yards of Captain
Beardsley's house and Marcy's. And that was just what it did.

Although the strictest silence and caution were observed, the progress
of the blue-jackets was not as slow and laborious as those who knew
where they were going thought it would be, and neither did they see or
hear anything to be afraid of. Only once during the long hours they
passed in those narrow, crooked streams did they hear a sound to tell
them where they were, and that was when a distant sentry on the right
bank, and a little astern of them, shou