aversed by a ferry-boat, rolled
between. At low tide this channel was the whole river, with broad, oozy
marshes on each side; at high tide the marshes were submerged, and the
stream was a mile wide. This was the point which I had selected.
To ascertain the numbers and position of the picket on the opposite
causeway was my first object, as it was a matter on which no two of our
officers agreed.

To this point, therefore, I rode, and dismounting, after being duly
challenged by the sentinel at the causeway-head, walked down the long
and lonely path. The tide was well up, though still on the flood, as
I desired; and each visible tuft of marsh-grass might, but for its
motionlessness, have been a prowling boat. Dark as the night had
appeared, the water was pale, smooth, and phosphorescent, and I remember
that the phrase "wan water," so familiar in the Scottish ballards,
struck me just then as peculiarly appropriate, though its real meaning
is quite different. A gentle breeze, from which I had hoped for a
ripple, had utterly died away, and it was a warm, breathless Southern
night. There was no sound but the faint swash of the coming tide, the
noises of the reed-birds in the marshes, and the occasional leap of a
fish; and it seemed to my overstrained ear as if every footstep of
my own must be heard for miles. However, I could have no more
postponements, and the thing must be tried now or never.

Reaching the farther end of the causeway, I found my men couched, like
black statues, behind the slight earthwork there constructed. I expected
that my proposed immersion would rather bewilder them, but knew that
they would say nothing, as usual. As for the lieutenant on that post, he
was a steady, matter-of-fact, perfectly disciplined Englishman, who wore
a Crimean medal, and never asked a superfluous question in his life. If
I had casually remarked to him, "Mr. Hooper, the General has ordered me
on a brief personal reconnoissance to the Planet Jupiter, and I wish you
to take care of my watch, lest it should be damaged by the Precession of
the Equinoxes," he would have responded with a brief "All right, Sir,"
and a quick military gesture, and have put the thing in his pocket. As
it was, I simply gave him the watch, and remarked that I was going to
take a swim.

I do not remember ever to have experienced a greater sense of
exhilaration than when I slipped noiselessly into the placid water, and
struck out into the smooth, eddying curr