er and flirt. They then adjourn to state-room, saloon
or card-room, to lounge or read to kill time; for the Alabama is
anything but a picturesque stream, with its low, marshy banks only
varied by occasional "cotton slides" and "negro quarters."

This night was splendidly clear, the moon bright as day, and Staple and
I with our cigars staid on deck to scrape acquaintance with the pilot
and the small, seedy Frenchman who officiated at the calliope. He was
an original in his way--"the Professor"--his head like a bullet,
garnished with hair of the most wiry blackness, cut close as the
scissors could hold it, looking like the most uncompromising porcupine.
Of course, he was a political refugee.

"_Dixie! Aire nationale! pas bonne chose!_" he exclaimed, seating
himself at his instrument and twirling a huge moustache. "_Voila le
Marseillaise!_ Zat make hymn national for you!" And he made the whistle
roar and shriek in a way to have sent the red caps into the air a
hundred miles away.

"Grand! Splendid!" roared Styles above the steam. "Why, Professor,
you're a genius. Come and take some brandy."

The professor banged the lid of his instrument, led the way instanter
down to our state-room; and, once there, did take something; then
something else and, finally, something more, till he got very
thick-tongued and enthusiastic.

"Grand aire of ze Liberte!" he cried at last, mounting again to his
perch by the smoke-stack. "Song compose by me for one grand man--ze Van
Dorn. I make zees--me, myself--and dedicate to heem!" And he banged at
the keys till he tortured the steam into the Liberty duet, from
"_Puritani_."

"How you fine zat, eh? Zat makes ze hymn for ze Souse. Me, I am
republicain! _Voila!_ I wear ze moustache of _ze revolutionaire_--my
hairs cut themselves _en mecontent_! Were zere colere more red as red,
I should be zat!"

The professor was so struck by the brilliancy of this idea, that he
played the air again, until it rang like a phantom chorus over the
still plantations. At last, overcome by emotion and brandy, he slid
from the stool and sat at the foot of the smoke-stack, muttering:

"Zat is ze hymn--_hic_--dedicate to ze general and to ze--_hic_--countree!"
Then he slept the sleep of the just conscience.

"Thar's the 'Senator,' and she's gainin' on us," said the pilot, as we
walked forward, pointing to a thin column of smoke rising over the
trees just abreast of us.

"How far astern?"

"A matter of two mi