We had been there a few days when I discovered that something unusual was taking place. Every night I could faintly hear the whispering of men engaged in some secret enterprise, but concluded that the best thing for me was to remain quiet and watch. Then came a big rain, which so thoroughly wet the ground that it caused a strip of earth about two feet wide and ten feet long to drop below the surface about ten inches, into a tunnel which these men had been digging. No one _appeared_ to notice it, as it was outside of the dead line. The project was abandoned, but the hole under the shed remained intact. Some men who were digging in another part of the prison deposited the earth in this exposed hole, but the guards had "caught on" and were on the watch. One night shortly after Captain Tabb, who was in charge of the prison, collected about twenty of his guard and, crawling up on the stockade, jumped over the fence and came down on us, swinging his sword, the guard following. They came through under the shed in single file and encircled my bunk and the one opposite, which covered the abandoned hole, and the captain said: "Now, I have caught you! You will have to pay for this! This is a pretty scrape!" He called for lanterns and shovels, and, seizing a lantern, held it down under the bunk, saw the hole, stuck the point of his sword down and it happened to hit some of the abandoned tools. He then rose to his feet, turned to Major Pasco, who was on a bunk just to his right, and ordered him to "get up and dig out that hole." The major flatly refused. This raised the ire of Captain Tabb, and he said: "You refuse to obey my orders, do you?" "I do," was the calm answer. Captain Tabb then yelled: "If you don't get up and dig out that hole you will be shot in less than one minute." By this time there were not less than eight hundred or a thousand men crowding around so close that the guard could hardly stand. I raised myself so as not to be trampled under foot in case of a rush. Major Pasco replied: "I am a soldier of the United States army and a prisoner of war. You have no right to demand any manual labor from me." Captain Tabb turned to a guard and gave the order: "Shoot that man. Shoot that man, I say." The guard brought up his gun, with the muzzle not over two feet from the major's head, and not over three feet from mine, when Tabb cried out again: "Shoot that man. Shoot that man, I say." But the guard seemed to know more, just at that time, than Tabb did; for, just so sure as the sun shines, had he obeyed the order not a man of the entire guard would have been left alive. A furious and surging mob were rushing to the front, and at that very instant every man on the guard was covered with some kind of deadly weapon. The guard did not pull the trigger and Tabb so far recovered himself as to not repeat the order. The next morning while the roll was being called a few negroes came in with the proper tools and dug out the tunnel.