e buffeting of the war, yet so
soon to rouse from lethargy, resume her sway, and, stretching forth her
arms, to draw once again to her bosom the wealth and tribute, tenfold
augmented, of the very heart of the nation, until, mistress of the
commerce of a score of States, she should rival even New York in the
volume of her trade. Below them, away to the east towards English Turn,
rolled the tawny flood, each ripple and eddy and swirling pool crested
with silver,--the twinkling lights at Chalmette barely distinguishable
from dim, low-hanging stars. Midway the black hulk of some big ocean
voyager was forging slowly, steadily towards them, the red light of the
port side already obscured, the white and green growing with every
minute more and more distinct, and, save the faint rustle of the leaves
overhead, murmuring under the touch of the soft, southerly night wind,
the plash of wavelet against the wooden pier, and the measured footfall
of the sentry on the flagstone walk in front of the sally-port, not a
sound was to be heard.

For a while they smoked in silence, enjoying the beauty of the night,
though each was thinking only of the storm that swept over the scene the
Sunday previous and of the tragedy that was borne upon its wings. At
last Kinsey shook himself together.

"Ferry, sometimes I come out here for a quiet smoke and think. Did it
ever occur to you what a fearful force, what illimitable power, there is
sweeping by us here night after night with never a sound?"

"Oh, you mean the Mississip," said Ferry, flippantly. "It would be a
case of mops and brooms, I fancy, if she were to bust through the bank
and sweep us out into the swamps."

"Exactly! that's in case she broke loose, as you say; but even when in
the shafts, as she is now, between the levees, how long would it take
her to sweep a fellow from here out into the gulf, providing nothing
interposed to stop him?"

"Matter of simple mathematical calculation," said Ferry, practically.
"They say it's an eight-mile current easy out there in the middle where
she's booming. Look at that barrel scooting down yonder. Now, I'd lay a
fiver I could cut loose from here at reveille and shoot the passes
before taps and never pull a stroke. It's less than eighty miles down to
the forts."

"Well, then, a skiff like that that old Anatole's blaspheming about
losing wouldn't take very long to ride over that route, would it?" said
Kinsey, reflectively.

"No, not if allowed