The Rebel was a boat armed with a one-hundred-pound rifled gun, and used for occasional reconnoitring expeditions down the river. Ratcliff had no difficulty in inducing the captain to put her on the chase; but an hour was spent hunting up the engineer and getting ready. At last the Rebel was started in pursuit. The rain had ceased, and the moon, bursting occasionally from dark drifting clouds, shed a fitful light. Ratcliff paced the deck, smoking cigars, and nursing his rage.
It was nearly sunrise before they reached Forts Jackson and St. Philip, thirty-three miles above the Balize. Nothing could yet be seen of the steam-tug; but there was a telltale pillar of smoke in the distance. “We shall have her!” said Ratcliff, exultingly.
Following in the trail of the Rebel were numerous sea-gulls whom the storm had driven up the river. The boat now entered that long canal-like section where the great river flows between narrow banks, which, including the swamps behind them, are each not more than two or three hundred yards wide, running out into the Gulf of Mexico. Here and there among the dead reeds and scattered willows a tall white crane might be seen feeding. Over these narrow fringes of swampy land you could see the dark-green waters of the Gulf just beginning to be incarnadined by the rising sun. With the saltwater so near on either side that you could shoot an arrow into it, you saw the river holding its way through the same deep, unbroken channel, keeping unmixed its powerful body of fresh water, except when hurricanes sweep the briny spray over these long ribbons of land into the Mississippi.
Vance had abandoned his original intention of trying the Pass à l’Outre. Having learned from a pilot that the Brooklyn, carrying the Stars and Stripes, was cruising off the Southwest Pass, he resolved to steer in that direction. But when within five miles of the head of the Passes, one of those capricious fogs, not uncommon on the river, came down, shrouding the banks on either side. The Artful Dodger crept along at an abated speed through the sticky vapor. Soon the throb of a steamer close in the rear could be distinctly heard. The Artful had but one gun, and that was a 5-inch rifled one; but it could be run out over her after bulwarks.
All at once the fog lifted, and the sun came out sharp and dazzling, scattering the white banks of vapor. The Rebel might be seen not a third of a mile off. A shot came from her as a signal to the Artful to heave to. Vance ordered the Stars and Stripes to be run up, and the engines to be reversed. The Rebel, as if astounded at the audacity of the act on the part of her contemptible adversary, swayed a little in the current so as to present a good part of her side. Vance saw his opportunity, and, with the quickness of one accustomed to deadshots, decided on his range. The next moment, and before the Rebel could recover herself, he fired, the shock racking every joint in the little tug.
The effect of the shot was speedily visible and audible in the issuing of steam and in cries of suffering on board the Rebel. The boiler had been hit, and she was helpless. Vance fired a second shot, but this time over her, as a summons for surrender. The confederate flag at once disappeared. The next moment a small boat, containing half a dozen persons, put out from the Rebel as if they intended to gain the bank and escape among the low willows and dead reeds of the marshy deposits. But before this could be done, two cutters bearing United States flags, were seen to issue from a diminutive bayou in the neighborhood, and intercept the boat, which was taken in tow by the larger cutter. The Artful Dodger then steamed up to the disabled Rebel and took possession.
At the mouth of the Southwest Pass they met the Brooklyn. Vance went on board, found in the Commodore an old acquaintance, and after recounting the adventures of the last twelve hours, gave up the two steamers for government use. It was then arranged that he and his companions should take passage on board the store-ship Catawba, which was to sail for New York within the hour; while all the persons captured on board the Rebel, together with the detective carried off by Vance, should be detained as prisoners and sent North in an armed steamer, to leave the next day.
“There’s one man,” said Vance,—“his name is Ratcliff,—who will try by all possible arts and pleadings to get away. Hold on to him, Commodore, as you would to a detected incendiary. ’T is all the requital I ask for my little present to Uncle Sam.”
“He shall be safe in Fort Lafayette before the month is out,” replied the Commodore. “I’ll take your word for it, Vance, that he isn’t to be trusted.”
“One word more, Commodore. My crew on board the little tug are all good men and true. Old Skipper Payson, whom you see yonder, goes into this fight, not for wages, but for love. He has but one fault!”