er timbers creaked and snapped as though they would
drop out of her.

Hatchie had placed his party in the hold, one of which was on the
look-out at the hatchway. He saw the danger of the steamer; but all his
friends were in the safest places the boat afforded. It was an anxious
hour for him; but everybody was in peril, and there was no remedy.

Maxwell, whose excitement in the race was feigned, perceived that the
boat was in imminent danger. He had not intended to carry the excitement
quite so far. An explosion was not exactly the thing he desired. It
would not be sufficiently discriminating in its choice of victims. But
the firemen were too much excited to listen to reason; therefore he
proceeded, with Vernon, towards the extreme after part of the boat.
Passing round the gallery of the ladies' cabin, they perceived that
Henry had, at last, left his post. Such was indeed the case. Roused from
his abstraction by the terrible anticipation of an explosion, he had
gone forward to reason with the pilots on the recklessness of their
course in allowing the boat to be so hard pressed.

"Now is our time," said Maxwell, in a whisper.

"Here goes, then!" replied Vernon.

"Be careful that you do not injure her,--and bring her clothes."

"Ay, ay! Have the boat ready quick, for, if I mistake not, the sooner we
are out of this boat the better."

The ruffian approached the door of Emily's state-room, and was about to
open it, when, with a noise louder than the crashing of the thunderbolt,
the starboard boiler exploded, and the Chalmetta lay a shapeless wreck
upon the waters!

CHAPTER XIV.

"False world, thou ly'st; thou canst not lend
The least delight;
Thy favors cannot gain a friend,
They are so slight." FRANCIS QUARLES.

The traveller on the Mississippi observes with interest the innumerable
islands which dot the river, and relieve the monotony of the scenery.
These islands are, for the most part, covered with a luxurious growth of
cotton-wood trees. They have generally been formed by what are
technically called cut-offs, or new channels, from the main land. The
mighty torrent, scorning its own well-beaten track, ploughs a way
through the country, and returns to its channel miles below, opening at
once a new path for the voyager upon its tide. The portion of land thus
separated from the main shore is often subdivided by the action of the
waters into several smaller is