“And yonder channel, once just wide enough for a yawl, is to-day washed out wide enough for a fleet to pass through—though not deep enough. In that fact now lies our safety.”
“How do you mean, Black Bart?” demanded he.
“Why, that all this water over yonder west of us is so shallow that it takes a wise oyster boat to get through to Morgan City. The shrimpers who reap these waters, even the market shooting schooners who carry canvasbacks out of these feeding beds in the marshes, have to know the tides and the winds as well, and if one be wrong the boat goes aground on these wide shoals. Less than a fathom here and here and here on the chart soundings—less than that if an offshore wind blows.”
“You mean we’ll go aground?”
“No, I mean that any pursuer very likely would. The glass is falling now. Soon the wind will rise. If it comes offshore for five hours—and it will wait for five hours before it does come offshore—we shall be safe, inside, at one of your old haunts, Jean Lafitte; and back of us will lie fifty miles of barrier—yon varlet may well have a care.”
“Yon varlet don’t know where we have went,” commented L’Olonnois in his alarming grammar.
“No, that is true. The water leaves no trail. Most Northerners go to Florida for the winter, and not to these marshes. Methinks they will have a long chase.”
“An’ here,” said Jean Lafitte, with much enthusiasm, “we kin lie concealed an’ dart out on passin’ craft that strike our fancy as prizes.”
“We could,” said I, “but we will not.”
“Why not?” He seemed chilled by my reply.