By a lantern Murguía read the paper handed him. It was signed: “Jefferson Davis, President C. S. A.” Therein Mr. Anastasio Murguía or any other blockade runner was required on demand of the bearer, Lieut. Col. Jno. D. Driscoll, to transport the said Driscoll to that part outside the Confederacy which might happen to be the blockade runner’s destination.
The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order 32again, hesitated again, and at last handed it back, his mind made up.
“Have the goodness, señor, to remove yourself from my boat.”
But the lieutenant colonel placidly inquired, “Carry any government cotton this trip? No, I know you don’t. Then you’re in debt to the government? Correct. So I reckon you’ll carry me in place of the cotton.”
The demand was just. For their golden privileges the blockade runners took a portion of their cargo on government account. But Murguía knew that the army of Northern Virginia must surrender soon. The Confederacy was really at an end, and this would be his last trip. Why, then, pay a dying creditor?
“The favor, señor! Or must I have you kicked off?”
The señor, however, with his charger behind him, was foraging over the deck to find a stall, and in a fury Murguía plucked at his sleeve. But Driscoll wheeled of his own accord to inquire about horse accommodations, and then the Mexican wondered in his timid soul at his own boldness. It loomed before him as unutterably more preposterous than the lone wanderer’s preposterous act of taking possession single handed. Yet the lone wanderer was only gazing down on him very benignly. But what experience of violent life, of cool dealing in death, did poor Don Anastasio behold on those youthful features! In a panic he realized certain vital things. To evade his debt to a government that could never claim it was very seductive and business-like. But there were the Confederate batteries on the wharf, and a line of torpedoes across the entrance to the bay. There were the Federal cannon of Fort Morgan, just beyond. His passenger, if rejected, had only to give the word, and there would be some right eager shooting. And as the Southerners shot, in their present mood, they would remember various matters. They would remember the treasure he 33had wrung from their distress; the cotton bought for ten cents and sold abroad for a dollar; the nitre, the gunpowder, the clothing and medicines, rated so mercilessly dear; the profits boosted a thousand per cent., though an army was starving.
And yet Murguía could not lift his soul from the few hundred dollars of passage money. He almost had his man by the sleeve again. But no, there were four hundred odd bales on board. There was La Luz, his fleet £20,000 Clyde-built side-wheeler, bought out of the proceeds of a single former trip. Even if torpedoes and cannon missed, the Fort and blockaders outside would be thankful for the alarm, and make sure of him. A few hundred dollars was an amount, but the benignity in Driscoll’s whimsical brown eyes meant a great deal more, such for instance, as cotton and steamer and Don Anastasio plunging to the bottom of the bay.
“Oh I s’y, sir,” interrupted a voice in vigorous cockney, “this ’ere tide ain’t in the ’abit o’ waitin’. If we go to-night, we go this minute, sir!” It was the skipper, and the skipper’s ultimatum.
“W’y yes,” drawled the lieutenant colonel, “let’s be marching. I forgot to tell you, I’m in a hurry. Come on, Demijohn,” and man and horse went in search of beds.