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If ever you go on the levee you'll know that sound, the rhythmic song of the stevedores heaving cotton-bales, and the steady thump, thump, of the machine compressing them within the hold of the ship. Finnegan, the leader, who had held up his hand for silence, uttered an oath. "Scabs! Men, come on!" There was no need for a further invitation.
The cotton-bales on the guards had been set on fire by a bursting shell; the tiller-rope shot away, rendering it impossible to steer the boat; the boilers penetrated, and the engine-room filled with hot steam, which now began to rise and envelop the men on the boiler-deck.
He it was, then, who offered to be the bearer to yourself at C of any despatches, or parcels, I might choose to send; but he affected to think me so thoroughly Americanised, that he entered a caveat against my loading him with a consignment of bowie knives or cotton-bales.
"Good God, Tomwit! you don't imagine I'm comparing a nigger to a thoroughbred, sir!" On the street corners, or piled around on cotton-bales down on the wharf, the negro men of the village discussed the fight.
He agreed with the carter that he should take Bertalda on his wagon, where, as the man assured him, there were a quantity of soft cotton-bales, upon which she could be conveyed to castle Ringstetten, and the knight was to accompany them on horseback.
The attacking vessels came nearer, and the men on the Union ships strained their eyes to see by the faint starlight what manner of craft they had to meet. They proved to be two large river-steamships, piled high with cotton-bales, crowded with armed men, and provided with a few field pieces.
There is no sorrow, nor any sighing, Nor any tears there, nor any dying..., I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, I can tarry I can tarry but a night." At a long distance they shot at Conway, they hooted, jeered, cursed him, but dared not come closer, for he had breast-worked himself behind some cotton-bales in the yard, and they knew he could still shoot.
When he had found his sword, he ran out of the cabin, and saw his men drawn up behind the cotton-bales, under charge of the coxswain, who ran up to his officer and hurriedly asked for orders.
These were floored over at the top to keep everything in place, so that a shot penetrating the outer barges would have to pass through twenty feet of rails and cotton before reaching the middle one, which carried the men and guns. The outer barges, thus bulkheaded with water-tight barrels and buoyant cotton-bales, could not sink.
His army was increased, his men were full of confidence, and, best of all, he had a line of strong earth-works to fight behind. It is commonly said that his fortifications were made of cotton-bales, but that is an error.
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