In less than twenty hours after, we were passing Lafayette; and the grand dome of the St. Charles Hotel came under our eyes, rising high above the roofs of the Crescent City.
"We must not go there," suggested Henry Woodley, pointing to the conspicuous object.
"And why?" asked Walter. "It is the best hotel in New Orleans, is it not?"
"True," answered the elder brother, wiser in the ways of the great Southern city. "By all titles the best. But just for that reason must we shun it. We should not be twenty-four hours under its roof before finding for a fellow-guest the man we have no wish to encounter."
"Ah! I understand you," answered the Tennesseean. "You think that he will go there?"
"Sure of it. I know the St. Charles to be his regular stopping-place. I've seen him there in its grand drinking-saloon, swaggering among the loudest of its bullies."
"In that case we had best go elsewhere."
"We must do so. We can stop somewhere in the French quarters—at the St. Louis, or even some more humble hostelry. It will never do for him to know that we are in New Orleans, and as for our young friend here, he must keep out of sight until the time when his testimony be required to seal the fate of these scoundrels, whose exposure will perhaps explain why so many flats have gone to the bottom of the Mississippi. No doubt, sir," continued the speaker, turning to me with an odd air of jocularity, "you will be able to clear the character of the hurricane."
By this time the Sultana had commenced sounding her pilot-bells—those mysterious signals by which the steersman communicates his wishes to the Vulcan-like individual who stands by the engine below.
The effect was soon apparent by the boat rounding to in the stream, and bringing up alongside the levee.