"I swan to man!" chimed in Tucket's voice from a distance,—for his long legs had given him an advantage in the general race,—"there ain't no shore after ye get to't. It's nothin' but salt ma'sh, all trod to pudd'n' by the fellers that have been in ahead of us. I thought we was to be landed; 'stead of that, we're swamped!"
The men pushed on, through marsh and swamp, sometimes in mire and water knee-deep, and now in tall, rank grass up to their eyes; the darkness adding to their dismal prospect.
"By Grimes!" mutters Jack Winch, "I don't think an island of this kind is worth taking. It's jest fit for secesh and niggers, and nobody else."
"We must have the island, because it's a key to the coast," says Frank.
"I wouldn't talk war, if I couldn't carry a gun," retorts Jack, made cross by the cold and wet.
"Perhaps before we get through you'll be glad to lend me yours," is Frank's pleasant response, as he hastens forward through grass which waves about his ears or lies trodden and tangled under foot.
"The gunboats have stopped firing," observes Atwater.
In fact, both gunboats and battery were now silent, the former having drawn off for the night.
THE BIVOUAC.