The Home Guards bent themselves almost double and stole across the clear space that intervened between the warehouses and the levee; and so cautious were they in their movements that the quartermasters on watch on the decks of the different gunboats, who were constantly sweeping the banks on both sides of the river with their long-distance spyglasses, saw no signs of them, and so silent that when they crept to the top of the levee on their hands and knees and looked over it, the negroes gathered at the landing below did not know that there was anyone near them. There were probably a dozen men, women, and children in the group, and they were lying at their ease on the ground or walking slowly back and forth; but all of them turned their gaze toward the gunboats now and then, as if they were waiting for somebody to come ashore. There were several covered baskets and pails near by, and the sight of them was enough to enrage Lieutenant Lambert, who whispered to the man who lay next him behind the levee:
"Pass the word along the line fur everybody to keep under kiver. We've ketched them niggers red-handed in the very act, fur there's grub in them buckets and things; now you just watch and see if there aint." Then he raised his voice a little and said to the nearest darkey: "What you folks doing there? Who you looking fur?"
"Waiting for Mr. Wilcox, sah," was the negro's prompt answer. He looked up and saw two or three heads above the top of the levee, but thought nothing of it. There were a good many whites in Baton Rouge who did not dare show themselves as freely to the Yankee sailors as the people of his own color did.
"Who's Mr. Wilcox?" demanded Lambert.
"He's de cater ob de steerage mess, sah; de man what buys de breakfus' fur some of de officers on dat fust boat," was the reply; and although Lambert did not understand the words any better than the negro did himself, he gathered from them the idea that somebody on the gunboat would come ashore for his breakfast very shortly, and that he and his warriors had reached the levee just in the nick of time.
This cheering intelligence was passed along the line in a whisper, and the Home Guards pulled off their hats and were settling themselves into comfortable positions behind the levee to await the coming of the caterer's boat, when they were startled by hearing someone close beside them say, in frightened and protesting tones:
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, what are you going to do?"
Lambert faced quickly around and saw a couple of citizens standing at the base of the levee where they could observe all that was being done by the Home Guards; but whether they had come upon his ambush by accident or design the lieutenant did not know or care to ask. He saw the necessity for prompt action.
"Scrooch down right where you stand, so that the Yanks can't see you," he commanded.