We have before intimated that Captain Somers, besides being a brave and enterprising young man, was a philosopher. He had that happy self-possession which enables one to bear the ills of life, as well as the courage and address to triumph over them. He had done everything which ingenuity, skill, and impudence could accomplish to save himself from the hands of the rebel soldiers; from a rebel prison, if not from a rebel halter. He had failed; and, though it gave him a bitter pang to yield his last hope, he believed that nothing better could be done than to surrender with good grace. "How are you, sergeant?" shouted he, when he had fully resolved upon his next step. "Hallo!" replied the sergeant, laughing heartily at the hail from the bowels of the earth. "How are you, Yank?" "In a tight place, sergeant; and I've concluded to back out," replied Somers. "Good! That's what all the Yankees will have to do before they grow much older. Back out, Yank!" Somers commenced the operation, which was an exceedingly unpleasant necessity to a person of his progressive temperament. It was a slow maneuver; but the sergeant waited patiently till it was accomplished, by which time the extra lamp and the pole had reported for duty. "How are you, Yank?" said the sergeant, laughing immoderately at the misfortune of his victim. "That's the smallest hole I ever attempted to crawl through," replied Somers, puffing and blowing from the violence of his exertions in releasing himself from his narrow prison-house. "How came you in such a place?" asked the sergeant as they walked up the stairs. "Well, my friend, the farmer here, suggested the idea to me. He said his son had crawled in there a great many times." "I?" exclaimed Rigney. "I never said a word about the drean." "You must be looked after," added the sergeant, with a menacing look at the discomfited farmer. "You have concealed a deserter in your house for weeks; and now we find that you hide Yankees too." "I didn't hide him!" protested Rigney. "Didn't you agree to keep me here till night?" asked Somers, who despised him beyond expression. "If I did, it was only to have the soldiers ketch yer." The sergeant declared that Rigney was a traitor, and that he must go along with him; but Somers, with more magnanimity than many men would have exercised towards such a faithless wretch, told the whole story exactly as it was, thus relieving him of a portion of his infidelity to the Southern Confederacy; and the sergeant was graciously pleased to let him remain at home, while his victim was marched off to the rebel camp. CHAPTER XXVI A NIGHT IN PETERSBURG The sergeant who had captured our hero seemed to be a very clever fellow, and appreciated the sterling merits of his captive. While he was rigidly devoted to the discharge of his duty, he treated his prisoner with all the consideration which one human being has the right to expect of another, whatever the circumstances under which they meet.