As is frequently the case along the lower course of the Mississippi, the surface of the river current is here higher than the swamps lying adjacent to the banks, inundating the surrounding country, and either finding its way back to the main stream, hundreds of miles below, or else, as in the case of the Atchafalaya Bayou, reaching the Gulf of Mexico by other channels.
So vast is the quantity of alluvial mud brought down by this mighty stream that the river constantly exhibits a tendency to deposit and raise banks for itself above the level of the low country through which it flows. From the nature of things, however, these banks cannot go on increasing in height beyond a certain well-marked limit.
Charlie Hoyt and Wistar Royce were standing by the long sweep, or steering oar, at the time, and Lewis Hoyt had just gone forward on lookout duty. As they floated past the willow bank a skiff with four rowers, farther out on the river, came up and hailed them. Lewis turned to answer and asked, “What news of the Spaniards?”
As he listened for their reply he felt the bow of the ark swing shoreward, and glanced back at the steersmen. But Wistar and Charlie were staring at him. He then saw the gap in the bank and the water surging through it—a gap no more than fifty feet wide; but, before he could even shout to the steersmen, the ark had headed into it and was sucked through.
For a hundred yards or more the torrent ran with great force, then spread itself over a submerged swamp of cane, willow, and other small growth, amid the tops of which the heavy craft went crashing its way for fully a quarter of a mile before the arksmen could check it.
It came to rest, finally, on a ridge thickly timbered with magnolia and live-oak trees, in the midst of which was a dense tangle of young bays and myrtle bushes and trumpet vines. Wedged securely between a live-oak, whose great branches swept the after-deck, and a tall magnolia at the bow, like a pile at the end of a pier, the ark was as securely docked as if it had reached the end of its travels.
It had all happened so suddenly that when Captain Royce came out of the cook’s galley, he was amazed to find the ark in a hammock a quarter of a mile back of the river.
“Well, Lewis,” drawled Shadwell Lincoln, “you’re a boss pilot. Reckon our voyage ends here. Looks as if we’d have to foot it the rest of the way.”
Charlie Hoyt, Wistar Royce and Lewis Hoyt stood staring at the disaster that their negligence had wrought.
“Oh, shut up, can’t you?” said Moses. “This ain’t any time for sarcasm. I guess Lewis didn’t come in here on a pleasure junket.”