"They did not give them enough for that, sir; but it made them kind of crazy, and they wanted more of it. That made the trouble; the hands struck for liquor before dinner, and when they didn't get it, they took to the woods, about fifty of them. The soldiers had to get their dinner before they would start out after them; and that is the reason the schooners are not full now, sir, and not a bale had been put into this steamer."
"But she seems to be fully loaded now."
"Yes, sir; Captain Lonley paid the soldiers that were left to load the Havana. They worked till eleven in the evening; they were not used to that kind of work, and they got mighty tired, I can tell you," said Dolly, with the first smile Christy had seen on his yellow face, for he appeared to enjoy the idea of a squad of white men doing niggers' work.
"That was what made them sleep so soundly, and leave the battery on the point to take care of itself," said Christy. "Where were the officers?"
"Two of them have gone on the hunt for the hands, and I reckon the captain is on a visit to a planter who has a daughter, about forty miles from here."
"The soldiers were sleeping very soundly in the barrack about two this morning; and perhaps they were also stimulated with apple jack," added Christy. "Did you drink any of it, Dolly?"
"No, sir, I never drink any liquor, for I am a preacher," replied the oiler, with a very serious and solemn expression on his face.
"How do you happen to be a greaser on a steamer if you are a preacher?"
"I worked on a steamer on the Alabama River before I became a preacher, and I took it up again. I was raised in a preacher's family, and worked in the house."
He talked as though he had been educated, but he could neither read nor write, and had picked up all his learning by the assistance of his ears alone. But Christy had ascertained all he wished to know in regard to the schooners, and he was prepared to carry out his mission in the bay. At the fort it appeared that all the commissioned officers were absent from the post, and the men, after exhausting themselves at work to which they were unaccustomed, had taken to their bunks and were sleeping off the fatigue, and perhaps the effects of the apple jack. While he was thinking of the matter, the gong struck, and Christy stopped the engine.