That night he followed the bank until he was below the city, still without finding a boat. There had been plenty of boats along this part of the river the morning before, but as soon as the escape from Libby had been discovered, all boats had been seized by the military authorities, to prevent their being used by the fugitives. They had been taken to a point below the town. As Tom wormed himself cautiously near this point, very cautiously, for he heard voices upon the bank above his head, and also the crackle of a camp-fire, he saw in the gray dawn a flotilla of boats just below him. At first sight, his heart leaped into his mouth with joy. At the second sight, it sank down into his boots. For above the boats he saw a big Confederate camp and beyond them he saw a half-dozen small craft, negroes at the oars and armed men at bow and stern, patrolling the river. Hope left him. He crawled into a hiding-place in the bank. He was so hungry that he cried. But not for long. Stout hearts do not yield to such weakness long. If he could not escape in a boat fashioned by man's hands, why not in one fashioned by God? The early spring freshets of the James were making the river higher every hour. He saw in cautious peeps from the hole where he had hidden great trees from far-off forests, uprooted there by the high water, come plunging down mid-channel like battering rams. He noted that the patrol-boats gave these dangerous monsters a wide berth. If a trunk of a tree were to ram them or if the far-flung branches were to strike them, their next patrol would be at the bottom of the river. On a sandbank not a hundred yards from the boy's lair a big oak had stranded. It lay quite still now, but it evidently would not do so for many hours, for the rising water lapped higher and higher against it. Tom made up his mind that that tree should be his boat--if only it were still there when it was dark enough for him to swim out to it. Through the daylight hours he watched it with lynx eyes, fearing lest it were swept along towards the sea before he could shelter himself in it. And through these daylight hours he grew ever more faint with hunger, until he told himself that he must have food, at any risk, at any cost. Without the strength it would give, he felt he could not possibly swim even the hundred yards that lay between him and the now tossing tree. There is truth in the line: "Fate cannot harm me; I have dined today." It is too much to do to face Fate on an empty stomach. Napoleon said that an army traveled on its belly. Men must have food if they are to march and fight.