pearls and diamonds--the gifts
of the summer night. The crew of the _Pique-en-terre_ saw all these and
felt them; for, whatever they may have been or failed to be, they were
men whose heartstrings responded to the touches of nature. One alone of
their company, and he the one who should have felt them most, showed
insensibility, sighed laughingly and then laughed sighingly, in the face
of his fellows and of all this beauty, and profanely confessed that his
heart's desire was to get back to his wife. He had been absent from her
now for nine hours!

But the sun is getting high; Petites Coquilles has been passed and left
astern, the eastern end of Las Conchas is on the after-larboard-quarter,
the briny waters of Lake Borgne flash far and wide their dazzling white
and blue, and, as the little boat issues from the deep channel of the
Rigolets, the white-armed waves catch her and toss her like a merry
babe. A triumph for the helmsman--he it is who sighs, at intervals of
tiresome frequency, for his wife. He had, from the very starting-place
in the upper waters of Bayou Sauvage, declared in favor of the Rigolets
as--wind and tide considered--the most practicable of all the passes.
Now that they were out, he forgot for a moment the self-amusing plaint
of conjugal separation to flaunt his triumph. Would any one hereafter
dispute with him on the subject of Louisiana sea-coast navigation? He
knew every pass and piece of water like A, B, C, and could tell, faster,
much faster than he could repeat the multiplication table (upon which he
was a little slow and doubtful), the amount of water in each at ebb
tide--Pass Jean or Petit Pass, Unknown Pass, Petit Rigolet, Chef
Menteur,--

Out on the far southern horizon, in the Gulf--the Gulf of Mexico--there
appears a speck of white. It is known to those on board the
_Pique-en-terre_, the moment it is descried, as the canvas of a large
schooner. The opinion, first expressed by the youthful husband, who
still reclines with the tiller held firmly under his arm, and then by
another member of the company who sits on the centreboard-well, is
unanimously adopted, that she is making for the Rigolets, will pass
Petites Coquilles by eleven o'clock, and will tie up at the little port
of St. Jean, on the bayou of the same name, before sundown, if the wind
holds anywise as it is.

On the other hand, the master of the distant schooner shuts his glass,
and says to the single passenger whom he has aboard