CHAPTER XXIII.

AN EMBARRa.s.sING SITUATION.

I was on my feet at daylight; but I found that Moses Brickland and Dyer Perkins were up before me. They had opened up the fires, drawn the clinkers from the furnaces, and were now oiling the engine. They had nearly steam enough to enable us to start up the river. Everything looked very quiet on board of the Islander, and there was no smoke issuing from her smoke-stack.

I jumped ash.o.r.e, and the first thing I noticed was that the water was more than a foot higher than it was the night before. It seemed to me that there must be an inundation above us. I found no one stirring on board of the consort, and I went on deck. I knocked at the door of the chief engineer. I told him I intended to get under way in the course of fifteen minutes, and I did not care to leave the Islander behind. He got up at once, and called his starboard fireman.

Without standing on any ceremony, I walked into the captain's state-room, and told him I should be off in fifteen minutes. I found he had given no orders about starting, but I a.s.sured him his engineer and fireman were attending to their duty. I bantered him a little, saying I did not leave him behind for fear he would get into trouble. He was good-natured about it, and replied that he should sail in the company of the Sylvania if possible. He admitted that we could outsail him, for he had done his best to keep up with the Sylvania.

"How are your prisoners getting along?" I asked, for I had thought more than once that they might escape while we were hauled up.

"They were all right last night when I turned in. I looked this place over, and there is not more than half an acre on this bank that is not under water," replied the captain. "They could not get away without a boat."

We went out on the deck, and found the two quarter-boats were hanging at the davits. Captain Cayo had charge of the prisoners, and the fore-cabin was locked every night before they went to their berths. But the door must have been opened to let the firemen out. I told the captain that he had better make sure they were safe before we left our moorings, as it would be easier to find them now than it would be after we got half way to New Orleans. He went below, and when he came up he was a.s.sured they were on board.

I had avoided Nick Boomsby since the capture of the Islander, for I knew he would beg me to get him out of his present trouble. I could not see my way to do anything of the kind, and therefore I kept out of his way. I remained on board of the steamer until the engineer reported that he had steam enough to go ahead, when I returned to the Sylvania.

The fasts were cast off, and by five o'clock we were again stemming the tide of the mighty river. The current was even stronger than it had been the day before. I told the engineer to let the steamer go at her ordinary speed, and the Islander kept very near us.

The river was covered with lumber, shanties swept from their resting-places, and other obstructions; but in the daytime we could easily avoid them. It was half-past seven before any of our pa.s.sengers came on deck. We were pa.s.sing a little village that seemed to be struggling for existence, for the high water was crowding hard upon its houses and other buildings. By eleven o'clock we saw several villages, and some very handsome and romantic estates, though they were mostly covered with water.

At noon the city was in plain sight, and soon we had New Orleans on one side and Algiers on the other. The water was almost up to the top of the levees. The sh.o.r.es were crowded with steamboats and sailing-vessels. The former were entirely different from any I had ever seen before, though for some time after I saw them every day. I had a map of New Orleans in a large atlas I kept in my room; and I had decided to make a landing as near as I could to the foot of Ca.n.a.l Street. I had read that this street had a green, with trees extending through it.

I had no difficulty in identifying it when I came to it. At the foot of it was the customhouse, said to be one of the largest public buildings in the United States; and I had no difficulty in believing the statement. In front of it was the broad levee where steamers landed, and such a forest of them I never saw before. They were packed in like sardines, and I could find no opening by which I could get to the sh.o.r.e.

I found that the decks of the steamers were common ground, and most of them could only be reached by pa.s.sing over others. But near the levee I found a wharf, the lower end of which was under water, at which I concluded we could lie by paying wharf.a.ge. I ran the Sylvania in as far as I could and made fast. The Islander came up alongside of her, and was secured to the bow and stern. My father and the Tiffanys concluded to take up their quarters at the St. Charles Hotel, so that they could see more of the city. I called a carriage for them; and then the Shepards decided to follow their example, as they were tired of being on the water for over a week.

As soon as they were gone we thought it was time to attend to the disposition of the prisoners. My father had taken the money with him, but the hotel was not more than a quarter of a mile from the wharf. I sent Buck Lingley to a.s.sist Captain Cayo, and he was a.s.signed to the care of Nick Boomsby.

"Here we are," said Captain Blastblow, after everything had been put in order on both vessels. "Do you expect to get away from here this summer?"

"This summer! I expect to get away from here in two or three days," I replied, rather startled by the remark of the captain.

"I think not," he added, shaking his head ominously.

"Why not?"

"Are you a lawyer, Captain Alick?" demanded Captain Blastblow, with a very comical expression on his face.

"I am no lawyer, not even a sea-lawyer," I answered, wondering what he was driving at.

"Neither am I; but it has occurred to me that we might be kept here longer than we wanted to stay."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I was thinking just now that if we had let Cornwood and Boomsby escape from the steamer last night it would have saved us a world of trouble,"

added Captain Blastblow, with a cunning leer and a wink.

"I don't understand you," I replied, satisfied by this time that he had found a mare's nest, or there was some kind of trouble ahead.

"We have two men in the fore-cabin who are charged with robbery."

"One of them is; the other is an accomplice after the fact," I replied.

"That sounds as though you had been a lawyer all your life, or at least since you put on jacket and trousers. An accomplice after the fact! I suppose that he took part in the robbery after it was all done."

"It means that Cornwood took the money, knowing it was stolen, and aided and abetted Boomsby in escaping. In my opinion, he came down to Key West solely to get part of the money. But no matter for that; what is to keep us here all summer?" I asked.

"I presume you mean to hand the robbers over to the police of New Orleans?" queried Captain Blastblow.

"That is the only thing we can do, unless we carry them back to Florida; and I don't care about going back there so soon."

"Just so. I don't know anything about law; but once I brought in a fellow in my vessel who had committed a crime in another State. One of the pa.s.sengers who knew all about the crime complained of the rascal, and he was hauled up before a court. It so happened that I knew something about the matter, and I was summoned as a witness, and the man was sent to jail. I could identify the man, but no one else could.

They had to send south for a requisition from the Governor of Georgia.

For one reason and another it took two weeks to get it, and I had to stay home from one trip to Savannah to appear as a witness."

"And you think we may be kept here as witnesses," I inquired, with no little anxiety.

"We are dead sure to be kept here till the Governor of Florida can send an officer with a requisition for the prisoner. It will take at least one week for that, and it may take two or three. Somebody must complain of Boomsby and Cornwood in Jacksonville, and then the governor must be sure that it is all right. After all this the Governor of Louisiana must be sure that he is not sending a man off who is not likely to be guilty."

The situation looked rather trying to me, and I decided to go on sh.o.r.e and have a talk with my father about it. As soon as I reached the customhouse I bought a Picayune, and the first thing I saw in the paper was "Further Details of the Great Storm." I found that the whole country above was inundated, and that it was expected the river would rise still higher. Many railroads could not send out trains, bridges had been carried away, and many lives had been lost. It was an appalling state of things. Vast numbers of men were employed in strengthening the levees above New Orleans. The Missouri River had risen higher than ever before, and whole villages had been carried away in the North-western States.

I found my father in the reading-room of the St. Charles devouring the contents of a newspaper. He began to give me the startling intelligence, but I told him I had just read it. I then stated the situation in relation to our two prisoners. He was alarmed at the prospect of a long delay, for the heat was intense in the city.

Besides, we were not sure the city itself would not be inundated by the rising waters.

My father was as much perplexed as I was. Our business was "Yachting on the Mississippi," and the idea of being detained two or even three weeks for the officials of two States to investigate a case that was plain enough to us was hardly to be endured on the one hand, while we had no desire to have a crime go unpunished on the other. We were certainly in a dilemma. We decided to have a conference with the rest of the party.

We found them in the ladies' parlor. Mrs. Shepard was fanning herself vigorously, and I judged that she was in a very unhappy state of mind.

I had seen very little of my pa.s.sengers during the voyage from Jacksonville, for the heavy sea which constantly deluged the deck had kept them in the cabin. I spoke to the colonel's wife, and hoped she was very well.

"I am not well at all, Captain Alick," she replied. "My nerves are shaken all to pieces by the voyage from Jacksonville, and if my husband owns the Islander for the next twenty years I shall never go to sea in her again."

"Indeed, is it so bad as that? But you have not been in the Islander in any very heavy weather," I added.

"I was in the Sylvania when I never expected to see land again; and I shall never forget that terrible time after the shipwreck, for I never suffered so much in one night, though I have crossed the Atlantic four times. I am told that you managed the Sylvania very well, and I have no doubt of it; but it was a terrible storm for such a small vessel. Last night I wished I was in the Sylvania, for I was very much alarmed when we were carried down the river by that terrible building."

"My wife don't feel safe in the city," added Colonel Shepard. "She is afraid we may be inundated here. She prefers to be on board of the steamer, and wants to start up the river immediately."

"I do feel safer on the river than I do on sh.o.r.e," said Mrs. Shepard.

"I heard there was a case of yellow fever in the city."

"Impossible, so early in the season," replied her husband.

"At any rate, I don't want to stay here another day."

The lady was nervous, but she could not help it; and her health seemed to be falling back under the excitement of the recent trip.