Bang! bang! bang! went a dozen shots, their blaze lighting up the intense darkness. It came from the new arrivals firing at the flying soldiers, who were rapidly retreating with their prizes. Tom Scott lost a thumb by a random shot, but he did not lose either of the two turkeys he had started with. "Who were they, Seth?" Diggs heard a voice outside ask. "I don't know; abolition soldiers, probably, stealing chickens," replied another voice. Diggs thought he had heard both voices before, but in his terror he was not sure. "Guess they got no chickens," said a third voice, and Diggs could hear the speaker ramming a load down his gun. "Let's take a look in the barn," said the first speaker. "Halloa! if they ain't left their lanterns burning; left in a hurry, I guess." The blood fairly froze in the veins of our friend Diggs, as he heard several steps approaching the barn door. Flight was now impossible, if it had not been before. Several men, dressed in the gray uniform of Confederates, appeared at the barn door. "Halloa!" cried one, in the uniform of a lieutenant, "here is a dead dog. Can that be what those three shots were fired at which brought us here?" "By Jove, Lieutenant Snapemup, there's a queer rooster," and the speaker pointed to our friend Diggs, who sat trembling astride the rafter. "Who are you and what are you doing up there?" cried Lieutenant Snapemup. "Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!" groaned Diggs. "Come down there, Stumpy," cried Diggs' old tormentor and former companion, Seth Williams, entering. As Diggs showed no sign of an intention to obey his order, Seth adopted a summary method for bringing him down. Taking a musket from a soldier, he fired a shot which passed about a foot above the small, round head. With a howl of fear and desperation, Diggs, who verily believed he was killed, let go his hold and fell from the beam, head first into the open meal-chest that was just beneath him. "Williams, what do you mean? You have killed him!" cried Lieutenant Snapemup. "No, I have not touched him," replied Seth. "Who is it?" asked Howard Jones entering the barn. "A Yank," replied Williams, and, walking forward to the chest, where Diggs was floundering and sneezing in the meal, he seized him by the nape of the neck, pulled him out and deposited him on the floor, where he stood, white with meal, and his eyes and ears full. "Who are you?" asked Seth, peering into the face of his victim, who stood digging his fists into his eyes. "I--I--hem--that is--I don't know," stammered Diggs. "Let me see," said Williams, giving him a shake so vigorous that the meal flew in white clouds from his hair and clothes. "I do. I know you. You are Patrick Henry Diggs, by all that's wonderful! Where have you been, corporal?" "I--hem--I--I--that is to say, I don't know," gasped Diggs. "You don't hey? Well, collect your ideas," replied Seth. "Well, yes--hem--that is to say--hem, hem--I have been a prisoner."