During the next five minutes we bumped those guns at a gallop over the old cotton rows, until we reached the cover of the woodland. Whether that little sloop carried one gun or twenty, I never knew. But the rapidity of her fire, as we crossed that old cotton field, convinced me, for the time being, that she carried at least a hundred. TWO MINUTES He spent the evening singing “Lorena.” He had had a sort of day-off that day, and had visited all of his friends. The author of that song had made it read:-- “A hundred weeks have passed, Lorena,” but our guest improved upon that, and made the lover rather aged by singing it:-- “A hundred _years_ have passed, Lorena, Since last I held thy hand in mine.” This was the only positive evidence we had that he had been calling. He stayed with us that night, and was not feeling well enough the next day even to sing “Lorena.” The next day after that he found some serious work to do. The way of it was this: He was a third lieutenant in the engineers. It was after the great mine explosion at Petersburg, and the engineers were busily engaged at that time using all their devices for the discovery of other mines. They had found one in process of construction in front of General Grade’s lines. They had proceeded at once to run a deeper tunnel under this one. They had loaded the end of it, just underneath the enemy’s works, with an incredible amount of gunpowder, and on that morning it was to be fired. A slow-match had been brought from the powder to the mouth of the mine. It was lighted, and a period of waiting ensued. The match had evidently gone out. Where, nobody knew or could guess. The general in command of that part of the line turned to the captain of engineers and said: “The mine must be blown up at once; will you go in and light the match again?” The captain hesitated, saying: “I don’t know; it may go off at any moment.” Thereupon he who had sung “Lorena” stepped forward, touched his cap to the general, and said: “With your permission, _I_ will go in and fire it.” “Thank you,” said the general; “go.” The man picked up the torch and started into the mine. It seems that the slow-match had gone out within a very short distance of the powder magazine. But disregarding that he touched the torch to it, set it off again, and ran with all his might for the mouth of the opening. It was two minutes’ work. The mine went off just before he reached the outlet, and the air pressure literally blew him out of it. He fell sprawling on his face. He was considerably bruised and scratched in his contact with the gravelly ground, but he was not in any serious way injured. Picking himself up, grimed as he was, he took off his cap, and dusting himself like a schoolboy who has fallen in the street, he approached the commanding officer and said: “General, I have the honor to report that I have fired the mine and that it has gone off.”