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Then in the evening, towards night, it fell to thunder, lighten, and rain so violently that my house was all afloat, and I in all the rain up to the gutters, and there dabbled in the rain and wet half an hour, enough to have killed a man. That done downstairs to dry myself again, and by and by come Mr.
For he was now hunter and hunted both; yet, like a dog that will be slain rather than loose his hold, he chose to risk his own life, if by that he might not lose sight of the unhappy woman. Two lives had been spent already in the quest: a third was nought to him; and the woman's air and clutching of her pocket had set an idea afloat in his brain.
"You once spoke of Atlantic liners," he at last remarked to the professor; "but surely this craft is larger than the largest Atlantic liner afloat. What are her dimensions?" "She is six hundred feet long, by sixty feet diameter at the point of her greatest girth," quietly replied the professor.
Suddenly the capstan went round an inch; then another and another. Was it the anchors coming home? No: the ship herself was moving. Everybody on board felt her move. "Hurrah! hurrah!" There was a general shout. Again the men sprang round with the capstan bars; the frigate was afloat. She was soon hauled off into deep water. The well was sounded, but she did not appear to have received any damage.
And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goods, ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it, glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton handkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat.
It was hard to believe that a man past middle age, who after years of hardest toil could afford to put half a million into a house for himself and his children, and store it with beautiful things, would have the courage to look so far into the future as to see all his work undone, his home turned to another use and himself and his wife afloat in the world without a roof over their wealthy old heads.
"It would be magnificent were it not so terrible." He was thinking of the gasoline in their tank and he shuddered. Would it last until the storm had passed, or would they be obliged to volplane down into that seething tempest? He put his lips to the tube. "You better use just enough gas to keep us afloat," he suggested. Alfred muttered something like, "Think I'm a fool?"
On the morning of January 2d, all my command were again afloat in their proper steamboats, when Admiral Porter told me that General McClernand had arrived at the mouth of the Yazoo in the steamboat Tigress, and that it was rumored he had come down to supersede me.
Just at that moment there was the sound of yelling, and a couple of shots were fired. Then more shouts arose, and a shrill whistle was heard. "Answer that, bo'sun," cried the officer in command of the party, and a shrill chirping sound seemed to cut the night air. "Now, my lads, forward!" "One minute," cried Aleck. "We want to get afloat. Tell your men to give my boat a shove off."
He believed they had plenty of gasoline to see them through, for an additional supply had been carried when starting from the neighborhood of the boat. But once they were afloat he realized that he had been borrowing needless trouble, for the gallant little aircraft just acted beautifully and seemed to be able to speed merrily along with two passengers almost as well as with but one.
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