So Tom tried to look dull, which was not at all his natural appearance. He studied the floor as if he expected to find diamonds upon it. He yawned so prodigiously as to attract the attention he was trying to escape. An amateur actor is apt to overact his part. And all the time he was listening with a passionate interest to Colonel Rose's story of the way to freedom. Of course he was glad to try to help make the hope a fact.

That night the work began. The kitchen dining-hall was deserted from 10 P.M. to 4 A.M., so it was selected as the field of operation. Below the kitchen was the carpenter-shop. No opening could be made into that without instant detection. On the same floor with the kitchen and just east of it was the hospital. That room must be avoided too. Below the hospital was an unused cellar, half full of rotting straw and all full of squealing rats. It was called "Rat Hell." Outside of it was a small sewer that led to a larger one which passed under the canal and emptied its contents into the James River. These sewers were to be the highway to freedom. The first step must be to get from the kitchen to Rat Hell. To do this it was necessary to dig through a solid stone wall a reversed "S," like this:

The upper end of the secret passage was to open into the kitchen fireplace, the lower into Rat Hell. There were fourteen men in the secret, besides Tom. Between them, they had just one tool, an old knife. One of them owned a bit of burlap, used sometimes as a mattress and sometimes as a bed-quilt. It had a new use now. It was spread upon the kitchen hearth in the midnight darkness and a pile of soot was pulled down upon it. Then the mortar between a dozen bricks at the back of the fireplace was cut out with the knife and the bricks pried out of place. This was done by Major A. G. Hamilton, Colonel Rose's chief assistant. He carefully replaced the bricks and flung handfuls of soot over them. He and Rose crept upstairs, carrying the sooty bit of burlap with them, and slept through what was left of the night. The next day was an anxious time for them. When they went down to the kitchen, where a couple of hundred men were gathered, it seemed to them that the marks of their toil by night were too plain not to be seen by some of them. Their nervousness made them poor judges. Nobody saw what had been done. That night, as soon as the last straggler left, Rose and Hamilton again removed the bricks and attacked the stubborn stone behind the fireplace. Fortunately the stones were not large. Bit by bit they were pried out of the loosened mortar.

Now came Tom's chance to serve the good cause. He was a proud boy, a few nights later, when he was permitted to go down to the kitchen with the Colonel and the Major, in order that he might creep into the hole they had made and enlarge it. His heels wiggled in the air. He laid upon his stomach in the upper part of the reversed "S" and plied the old knife as vigorously as it could be plied without making a tell-tale noise. When he had widened the passage, one of the men took his place in it and drove it downward. One night Colonel Rose in his eagerness got into the opening before the lower part of it had been sufficiently enlarged and stuck there. It was only by a terrible effort that Hamilton and Tom finally dragged him out, bruised, bleeding and gasping for breath. Finally, after many nights, Rat Hell was reached. A bit of rope, stolen from about a box of food sent a prisoner, had been made into a rope ladder. It was hung from the edge of the hole. The three crept cautiously down to Rat Hell. This haven did not seem much like heaven. With squeals of wrath, the rats attacked the intruders and the intruders fled up their ladder. They were no match for a myriad rats. Moreover they feared lest the noise would bring into the basement the sentry whose steps they could hear on the sidewalk outside. So they fled, taking their rope-ladder with them, and again, as ever, they replaced the bricks and painted them with the friendly soot.

The next night, armed this time with sticks of wood, they fought it out with the rats and made them understand their masters had come to stay. Fortunately the fight was short. It was noisy and the sentry came. But when he opened the door from the street and looked into the darkness of the basement, the Union officers were safely hid under the straw and only a few of the defeated rats still squealed. At last the tunnel to the sewer could be begun. Colonel Rose had long since decided, by forbidden, stealthy glances from an upper window, just where it was to be. The measurement made above was now made below, the straw against the eastern wall was rolled aside and the old knife, or what was left of it after its battle with brick and stone, was put to the easier task of digging dirt.

FIGHTING THE RATS
From "Famous Adventures of the Civil War."
The Century Co.

Soon a new difficulty had to be met. Before the tunnel was five feet long, the air in it became so foul that candles went out in it. So would the lives of the diggers have gone out if they had stayed in it long. Five of the fifteen now went down each night, so that everybody had two nights' rest out of three. But the progress made was pitifully slow. Man after man was hauled by his heels out of the poisonous pit, almost at his last gasp. Once, when Hamilton had been brought out and was being fanned back to life by Colonel Rose and Tom, the boy whispered:

"Why not fan air into the tunnel?"