marooners, refugees of a hundred
nationalities,--fishers and shrimpers by name, smugglers by
opportunity,--wild channel-finders from obscure bayous and unfamiliar
chenieres, all skilled in the mysteries of these mysterious waters
beyond the comprehension of the oldest licensed pilot ...

There is plunder for all--birds and men. There are drowned sheep in
multitude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of claret and
kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the surf. There are
billiard-tables overturned upon the sand;--there are sofas, pianos,
footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs, lounges of bamboo.
There are chests of cedar, and toilet-tables of rosewood, and trunks of
fine stamped leather stored with precious apparel. There are objets de
luxe innumerable. There are children's playthings: French dolls in
marvellous toilets, and toy carts, and wooden horses, and wooden
spades, and brave little wooden ships that rode out the gale in which
the great Nautilus went down. There is money in notes and in coin--in
purses, in pocketbooks, and in pockets: plenty of it! There are silks,
satins, laces, and fine linen to be stripped from the bodies of the
drowned,--and necklaces, bracelets, watches, finger-rings and fine
chains, brooches and trinkets ... "Chi bidizza!--Oh! chi bedda
mughieri! Eccu, la bidizza!" That ball-dress was made in Paris
by--But you never heard of him, Sicilian Vicenzu ... "Che bella
sposina!" Her betrothal ring will not come off, Giuseppe; but the
delicate bone snaps easily: your oyster-knife can sever the tendon ...
"Guardate! chi bedda picciota!" Over her heart you will find it,
Valentino--the locket held by that fine Swiss chain of woven
hair--"Caya manan!"

And it is not your quadroon bondsmaid, sweet lady, who now disrobes you
so roughly; those Malay hands are less deft than hers,--but she
slumbers very far away from you, and may not be aroused from her sleep.
"Na quita mo! dalaga!--na quita maganda!" ... Juan, the fastenings of
those diamond ear-drops are much too complicated for your peon fingers:
tear them out!--"Dispense, chulita!" ...

... Suddenly a long, mighty silver trilling fills the ears of all:
there is a wild hurrying and scurrying; swiftly, one after another, the
overburdened luggers spread wings and flutter away.

Thrice the great cry rings rippling through the gray air, and over the
green sea, and over the far-flooded shell-reefs, where the huge white