He threw himself once more upon his rude couch and abandoned himself to despair. But youthful hope never despairs utterly, however desperate the circumstances; a few moments after saw him with his handcuffs thrown off, and busily engaged in piling the loosened bricks upon the floor. In less than an hour, he beheld the stars lightly twinkling in the Heavens, through the aperture created by the removal of a single brick, which he had taken from the outer layer before he was aware of his progress. Cautiously and intently he listened for the footsteps of the sentinel; strange sounds seemed to come from off the water, but all in his immediate vicinity was as quiet as the grave, except the tumultuous throbbing of his own heart. Again he proceeded cautiously in his work, until he had completed an aperture sufficiently large to admit the passage of his body. Then, bracing his nerves, he proceeded to effect his exit through the opening, and was vigorously struggling to free himself, when a musket ball whistled by his ear and buried itself in the wooden sill of the house. He sprang back into the cellar, and stood in confusion and amazement, until the short chuckling laugh of the sentinel roused him from his delusive dream of hope. He could distinctly hear the marksman who had exhibited such a dangerous proof of his skill, laughing and telling his comrade, who paced before the door at the end of the house, "how he had shaved the prisoner's head." The unfortunate captive now abandoned himself to despair in earnest. A thousand times he cursed his ill fated stars, for thus leading the old nurse into his cell to rouse his dormant hopes, and give a new impulse to his desires for freedom. While these matters were in progress at the prison of our hero, the naval armament under the command of Bland, Carver and Larimore, belonging to and put in motion by his friends among the citizens, and which might have rendered him such effectual assistance had the two principal officers been aware of his situation, was itself about to perform its share in the contest. The expedition under Ludwell, as had been promised to the traitor Larimore, was sent out at the exact time specified, and with muffled oars skimmed along the surface of the tranquil lake, keeping under the shadow of the ships. As they approached, signals were exchanged, which satisfied Ludwell that Larimore was indeed in command of the watch, and still ready to betray his trust. Once or twice, indeed, a suspicion shot across his mind, that Larimore might only be an agent in the hands of Bland and Carver, and that his proposal was but a scheme laid to entrap himself and followers into the power of the rebels, as the Governor's party were pleased to call the patriots; but it was as speedily dissipated by the favourable train in which every thing seemed to lie, as the traitor had promised.