"On deck," replied Christy.
"Steamer on the port bow," added the seaman.
"That must be the Bellevite," said the lieutenant.
"Now you may go on deck, Bokes," added Graines, as he drove the boozer ahead of him, and followed his superior.
He instructed the men in the waist to keep an eye on Bokes, and sent him forward. Then he took the precaution to lock the doors at the companion-way, and joined Christy on the quarterdeck.
"That's the Bellevite without a doubt," said Christy, as he directed the spy-glass he had taken from the brackets, and was still looking through it. "But she is farther to the eastward than I expected to find her."
"I suppose her commander knows what he is about," replied Graines.
"Certainly he does; and I do not criticise his action."
All the steamers on the blockade except the Bellevite and the one in the west had been sent away on other duty, for it was believed that the former would be enough to overhaul anything that was likely to come out of Mobile Bay at this stage of the war. Sure of the steamer of which he was the executive officer, Christy directed his glass towards the one on the other side of the channel. She had received no notice of the approach of a powerful blockade-runner, and she had not a full head of steam when she discovered the Tallahatchie. Besides, she was one of the slowest vessels in the service.
The black smoke was pouring out of her smokestack as though she was using something besides anthracite coal in her furnaces, and she was doing her best to intercept the Confederate. She was still firing her heaviest gun, though it could be seen that her shots fell far short of the swift steamer.