Now we were below the town, having run five miles of batteries. Ten minutes more meant safety. Already we began to felicitate each other upon our good fortune, when the scene suddenly changed.
A terrific report, like the explosion of some vast magazine, left us breathless, and seemed to shake the earth to its very center. It was accompanied by a shriek which I shall never forget, though it seemed to occupy less than a quarter of the time consumed by one tick of the watch. It was the death-cry wrung from our captain, killed as he stood at the wheel. For his heedlessness in fitting out the expedition, his life was the penalty.
Disabled and Drifting Helplessly.
We listened, but the friendly voice from the tug was hushed. We were disabled, and drifting helplessly in front of the enemy's guns!
For a moment all was silent. Then there rose from the shore the shrill, sharp, ragged yell so familiar to the ears of every man who has been in the front, and clearly distinguishable from the deep, full, chest-tones in which our own men were wont to give their cheers. Many times had I heard that Rebel yell, but never when it was vociferous and exultant as now.
Seeing fire among the hay-bales about us, Colburn and myself carefully extinguished it with our gloved hands, lest the barge should be burnt. Then, creeping out of our refuge, we discovered the uselessness of our care.
That shot had done wonderful execution. It had killed the captain, exploded the boiler, then passed into the furnace, where the shell itself exploded, throwing up great sheets of glowing coals upon both barges. At some stage of its progress, it had cut in twain the tug, which went down like a plummet. We looked for it, but it had disappeared altogether. There was some débris—chairs, stools, and parts of machinery, buoyed up by timbers, floating upon the surface; but there was no tug.
The barges, covered with bales of dry hay, had caught like tinder, and now, at the stern of each, a great sheet of flame rose far toward the sky, filling the night with a more than noonday glare.
Upon the very highest bale, where the flames threw out his pale face and dark clothing in very sharp relief, stood "Junius," in a careless attitude, looking upon the situation with the utmost serenity. My first thought was that the one thing he required to complete the picture was an opera-glass. To my earnest injunction to leave that exposed position, he replied that, so far as safety was concerned, there now was little choice of places.
Meanwhile, we were under hotter fire than at any previous moment. In the confusion caused by our evolutions in the eddies, I had quite lost the points the of compass, and asked:—