t of a shell whirring over our heads.
It was Fort Fisher, wide awake and warning the gunboats to keep their
distance. With a parting broadside they steamed sulkily out of range,
and in half an hour we were safely over the bar.

"A boat put off from the fort, and then--well, it was the days of
champagne cocktails, not whiskeys and sodas, and one did not run a
blockade every day. For my part I was mightily proud of my first attempt
and my baptism of fire. Blockade-running seemed the pleasantest and most
exhilarating of pastimes. I did not know then what a very serious
business it could be."

On the return trip the "Banshee" was ballasted with tobacco and laden
with cotton, three tiers of it even on deck. She ran impudently straight
through the centre of the cordon, close by the flag-ship, and got
through the second cordon in safety, though chased by a gunboat. When
Nassau was reached and profits summed up, they proved to amount to L50
a ton on the war material carried in, while the tobacco carried out
netted L70 a ton for a hundred tons and the cotton L50 a bale for five
hundred bales. It may be seen that successful blockade-running paid.

It may be of interest to our readers to give some other adventures in
which the "Banshee" figured. On one of her trips, when she was creeping
down the land about twelve miles above Fort Fisher, a cruiser appeared
moving along about two hundred yards from shore. An effort was made to
pass her inside, hoping to be hidden by the dark background of the land.
But there were eyes open on the cruiser, and there came the ominous
hail, "Stop that steamer or I will sink you!"

"We haven't time to stop," growled Steele, and shouted down the
engine-room tube to "pile on the coals." There was nothing now but to
run and hope for luck. The cruiser at once opened fire, and as the
"Banshee" began to draw ahead a shot carried away her foremast and a
shell exploded in her bunkers. Grape and canister followed, the crew
escaping death by flinging themselves flat on the deck. Even the
steersman, stricken by panic, did the same, and the boat swerved round
and headed straight for the surf. A close shave it was as Taylor rushed
aft, clutched the wheel, and just in time got her head off the land.
Before they got in two other cruisers brought them under fire, but they
ran under Fort Fisher in safety.

One more adventure of the "Banshee" and we shall close. It was on her
sixth trip out. She had got safely thr