ows, the waving rich brown hair, with a strand of
silver here and there--the somber dress of black, the white lace collar
and the dainty white lace cap on the back of her beautiful hair--it took
his breath.

The more he saw of these Southern people, men and women, the more absurd
became the stuff he had read so often about the Puritan of New England
and the Cavalier of the South. He was more and more overwhelmed with the
conviction that the Americans were _one_ people racially and
temperamentally. The only difference on earth between them was that
some settled in the bleak hills and rock-bound coast of the North and
others in the sunlit fields and along the shining shores of the South.

He returned with Jennie Barton to her home with the deepening conviction
that he was making no progress. He must use this girl's passionate
devotion to her country as the lever by which to break into her heart or
he would fail.

He paused on the doorstep and spoke with quick decision:

"Miss Jennie, your Southern women have fired my imagination. I'm going
to resign my commission with the Sardinian Ministry and enter the
service of the South--"

"You mean it?"

"I was never in more deadly earnest."

He looked straight into her brown eyes until she lowered them.

"I need not tell you that you have been my inspiration. You understand
that without my saying it."

Before Jennie could answer he had turned and gone with quick, firm step.

She watched his slender, graceful figure with a new sense of
exhilaration and tenderness.

CHAPTER XX

THE ANACONDA

While General Joseph E. Johnston was devoting his energies to a campaign
to change the date of his commission and his friends organizing their
opposition to the President at Richmond, Gideon Welles, the quiet,
unassuming Secretary of the Navy at Washington, was slowly but surely
drawing the mighty coil, the United States Navy, about the throat of the
South. He made little noise but the work he did was destined to become
the determining factor of the war.

The first blow was struck at North Carolina.

On August 26, 1861, at one o'clock the fleet quietly put to sea from
Fortress Monroe. On Tuesday they arrived at Hatteras Inlet, opened fire
on the two forts guarding its entrance and on the twenty-ninth a white
flag was raised. Seven hundred and fifteen prisoners were surrendered,
one thousand stand of arms, and thirty pieces of cannon. At a single
blow the whole vast in