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"So! you know Coombs, hey?" "I 've met him yes." The black eyes searched my face, and I noted his right hand touch the hilt of a knife in his belt. "What water is this?" I asked, ignoring his action, "bayou?" "Oui, M'sieur." "Are we near the sea?" "Twenty-seex mile. You not know where you are? 'Tis odd you not know, M'sieur."
To this accident it was probably owing that the party survived that hour, and that any order was preserved in the town. "Shame, Proteau! shame!" said Odeluc, as he bent down, and saw that the negro was dying. Papalier, Bayou, and a few more, cried "Shame!" also; while others applauded.
I then went through the country by land, and sold my negro for nine hundred dollars, and the second night after I sold him I stole him again, and my friend ran him to the Irish bayou in Texas; I followed on after him, and sold my negro in Texas for five hundred dollars.
Aiming to reach firm ground beyond this bayou, and to leave as little time for our enemy to reenforce as possible, I determined to make a show of attack along the whole front, but to break across the bayou at the two points named, and gave general orders accordingly.
When the dangers encountered by the gunboats during this expedition are considered, the damage sustained seems surprisingly small. Had the Confederates acted promptly and vigorously, the intruders would never have escaped from the swamps into which their temerity had led them. A few torpedoes, judiciously planted in the muddy bed of the bayou, would have effectively prevented any farther advance.
The work had not progressed so far as to admit the water from the river into the lake, but the troops had succeeded in drawing a small steamer, of probably not over thirty tons' capacity, from the river into the lake. With this we were able to explore the lake and bayou as far as cleared.
All the firing had ceased as if by preconcerted signal, though the combatants on either side were awed by the fate of the vessel. The smoke bank came back, too, thicker and heavier than before, and the air was filled with the strong, pungent odor of burnt gunpowder. But the schooner that had blocked the mouth of the bayou was gone forever and the way lay open before them.
"And we're down to fifty a month in hard cash. But the tenant farmer on the other side of the bayou is to supply us with fresh fruit and vegetables. And our wardrobes are fairly intact. So I think that we can afford to hire the washing done. We'll take turns cooking " "Who's elected to do the poisoning first?" Val inquired with interest. "I trust we possess a good cook-book?"
Although all of them were trussed up securely, he menacingly kept his little wooden revolver pointed at them from the level of his knee. He chuckled as he thought of the fight at the bayou. Everything was working out all right; it was surprising what one could do with his physical strength here on Mercury. The girls had carried the platform up some five hundred feet above the sea.
Of course, we cannot return to our homes when commissioned officers are playing the part of pirates, burning, plundering, and destroying at will, with neither law nor reason. Donaldsonville they burned before I left Baton Rouge, because some fool fired a shotgun at a gunboat some miles above; Bayou Sara they burned while we were at General Carter's, for some equally reasonable excuse.
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