He had formed another desperate resolve--he would go to Orton in the night, and in a frail bateau attempt to pass the picket boats at Fort Anderson and Fort Fisher, and reach the blockading fleet beyond the bar. Perhaps when they heard his story they would take pity and send him North, when he might resume his search. He had crossed the river by the Market Street ferry and was passing through the cotton yard, where several blockade runners were loading their outward cargoes, when a new idea came to him; why could he not go as a steward on a steamer, and, with his wages, reach the North by way of the West Indies? With deferential humility he approached the captain of a steamer, which shall be nameless. He was not an American, neither was he a man in the sense of the noblest work of God; he was the embodiment of a personal devil; he laughed the old man to scorn; he had carried away on previous voyages runaway niggers, who, he said, had stowed away, and he had been obliged to pay for them on his return; the next one he caught at sea on board his ship would wish he had never been born; he didn't need a steward, and he did not doubt his tale of the young master was a lie. As the poor man turned away he was drawn aside by a kindly steward who had overheard the conversation, and, after much discussion and apprehension, he agreed to arrange a secret passage to Bermuda. That night he was stowed away, where it was hoped that the cruel process of fumigation for the discovery of fugitive slaves and deserters from the army, then in vogue before sailing, would not reach him. Cramped by the narrow space which forbade lying down, and deathly seasick, on the second night he crawled out for fresh air, was detected and seized by a passing sailor and reported to the captain. Infuriated by his recognition of the stowaway, he actually stopped the ship and set the poor wretch adrift in a leaky boat, without oars or food or water. It was on the second night after that he heard the mysterious bell and shrieked aloud for deliverance.