this preliminary statement of
the situation, let us permit Mr. Taylor to tell his story.

"The 'Banshee's' engines proved so unsatisfactory that, under ordinary
conditions, nine or ten knots was all we could get out of her; she was
therefore not permitted to run any avoidable risks, and to this I
attribute her extraordinary success where better boats failed. As long
as daylight lasted a man was never out of the cross-trees, and the
moment a sail was seen the 'Banshee's' stern was turned to it till it
was dropped below the horizon. The look-out man, to quicken his eyes,
had a dollar for every sail he sighted, and if it were seen from the
deck first he was fined five. This may appear excessive, but the
importance in blockade-running of seeing before you are seen is too
great for any chance to be neglected; and it must be remembered that the
pay of ordinary seamen for each round trip in and out was from L50 to
L60.

"Following these tactics, we crept noiselessly along the shores of the
Bahamas, invisible in the darkness, and ran on unmolested for the first
two days out [from the port of Nassau], though our course was often
interfered with by the necessity of avoiding hostile vessels; then came
the anxious moment on the third, when, her position having been taken at
noon to see if she was near enough to run under the guns of Fort Fisher
before the following daybreak, it was found there was just time, but
none to spare for accidents or delay. Still, the danger of lying out
another day so close to the blockaded port was very great, and rather
than risk it we resolved to keep straight on our course and chance being
overtaken by daylight before we were under the fort.

"Now the real excitement began, and nothing I have ever experienced can
compare with it. Hunting, pig-sticking, steeple-chasing, big-game
shooting, polo--I have done a little of each--all have their thrilling
moments, but none can approach 'running a blockade;' and perhaps my
readers may sympathize with my enthusiasm when they consider the dangers
to be encountered, after three days of constant anxiety and little
sleep, in threading our way through a swarm of blockaders, and the
accuracy required to hit in the nick of time the mouth of a river only
half a mile wide, without lights and with a coast-line so low and
featureless that, as a rule, the first intimation we had of its nearness
was the dim white line of the surf.

"There were, of course, many different