Indeed, the thought had been in my mind at the moment of embarking. I did not declare it, as I knew it would humiliate my late host to think that the brute Black had beaten us. Now that I was alone, there was no reason why I should continue to endure the inconvenience of such a voyage. By going ashore at Natchez, I could put an end to it, and the Woodleys need be none the wiser.
All through the afternoon the zigzagging continued, and I think we must have crossed and recrossed about a score of times. It seemed a slow way of carrying Squire Woodley's cotton crop to its destination. At the rate we were progressing, it would be midwinter before our craft touched the levee of New Orleans.
When the sun set, we were not ten miles below the place of my embarkation. I conjectured this from not having seen the island where we had shot the eagle; though it was possible we might have passed without my recognizing it.
During the daylight I had contrived to kill time with my gun. Waterfowl were constantly flushing up before the boat, and land-birds flying across the river, and I amused myself by shooting them.
Now it was an osprey soaring above the stream; now a white egret or a blue heron perched upon the point of some sand-bar, or sailing along upon a drift-log.
Once I got a shot at the great Mississippi crane, and brought the bird down upon the water; but as the uncivil skipper would not allow his skiff to retrieve it, I had to lose my game.
The shooting, however, proved excellent sport. Indeed, it was partly in expectation of this I had first thought of making such a voyage.
When night came on I could not continue it; and I was forced to think of some other resource for destroying time.
There was no other. Conversation with such a crew was out of the question, and I was without books—even had it been possible to read them by the light of a dull tallow dip that burned in the hole called "caboose." I could not endure to stay in this noisome hole, in the company of four chattering negroes, who for some reason had been ordered to remain below. The two white men kept to the roof; and thither I repaired, intending to spend at least a portion of the night in the open air.
Though the day had been one of the hottest, it was now cool enough for heavy covering—the chill air of the swamp sweeping along the surface of the stream.