But they only did their duty, and perhaps they did not know how nearly they had escaped being made food for fishes.

On the rocket being thrown up, a gun was fired uncommonly close to us, but as we did not hear any shot, it may have been only a signal to the cruisers to keep a sharp look-out.
We steered a mile or two near the coast, always edging a little to the eastward, and then shaped our course straight out to sea.

Several guns were fired in the pitch-darkness very near us.

(I am not quite sure whether some of the blockaders did not occasionally pepper each other.) After an hour's fast steaming, we felt moderately safe, and by the morning had a good offing.
Daylight broke with thick, hazy weather, nothing being in sight.

We went on all right till half-past eight o'clock, when the weather cleared up, and there was a large paddle-wheel cruiser (that we must have passed very near to in the thick weather) about six miles astern of us.