The guide was utterly demoralized with fright, or cold, or both. So I took his horse and ordered him to wait on the island till morning, and then to make his way to whatever point he should find it easiest to reach. The sergeant and I determined to make another effort to get to Bluffton and give the alarm. “Run back to the other side of the island,” said he to one of his men, “and see if the fleet is still in sight and what it is doing. We must let our horses blow a little, and you can get back by the time we are ready to start.” The man went, and his comrade, having nothing better to do, went with him. Presently one of them returned, bringing the news that the fleet was making its way up a narrow creek from which, as we knew, neither the Buckingham Ferry nor the Hunting Island picket could see it. As those were the only posts from which after seeing it a man could get to Bluffton in time to give the alarm, the sergeant and I were more than ever determined to make our way thither at all hazards. Luckily the road from Bear’s Island to Bluffton was the easiest one in all that country to find, and the one I happened to know best. So that even if the sergeant should not get across the marsh, I was confident of my ability to make the journey alone. “Now,” said the sergeant, “if I get across I won’t wait for you, but will go right on; if you succeed, don’t wait for me. It’s no time for ceremony. It’s better one of us should drown than that the other should be delayed.” “Spoken like a man and a soldier, sergeant,” said I. “Now for it.” And with that we again essayed to follow the submerged track. About midway the sergeant’s horse went down as before; and just as I was about to call out something encouraging to him the guide’s horse, which I was riding, plunged headforemost into the salt water, throwing me completely over his head. For a moment I was senseless from a blow received either from the hoof of the sergeant’s horse, or by falling against one of the timbers of the causeway. When I came to myself I was clinging to the tail of the sergeant’s horse, while the sergeant, as I presently discovered, was holding by one of the stirrups. How long we remained in the water, I do not know, but it must have been nearly an hour. The poor horse swam around in a purposeless way, not knowing where to go, until finally he sank exhausted beneath the tide. Cool as the night was the salt water was tepid as it always is on that coast. Otherwise I should not now be alive to tell of that Christmas Eve. We got out at last and found ourselves on the island again. Despairing now--for without horses it was simply impossible to get to Bluffton until long after the time when our coming would be of any use--we trudged doggedly across the island, that we might wait and listen at the water’s edge for the booming of the cannon. Two more utterly wretched young men no Christmas morning ever dawned upon.