s
shore.

A number of mortar boats were brought down and threw shells into the
forts till they were half paved with iron. But all that did no good.
Then Admiral Foote was asked to send one of the boats down past the
forts.

That was dreadfully dangerous work, for there were guns enough in them
to sink twenty such boats. But Captain Walke thought he could take his
boat, the _Carondelet_, down, and the admiral told him he might try.

What was the _Carondelet_ like, do you ask? Well, she was a long, wide
boat, with sloping sides and a flat roof, and was covered with iron two
and a half inches thick. Four of her guns peeped out from each side,
while three looked out from the front door, and two from the back door
of the boat.

Captain Walke did not half expect to get through the iron storm from the
forts. To make his boat stronger, extra planks were laid on her deck and
chain cables were drawn tightly across it. Then lumber was heaped
thickly round the boiler and engines, and ropes were wrapped round and
round the pilot-house till they were eighteen inches thick.

After that a barge filled with bales of hay was tied fast to the side
that would catch the fire of the forts. Something was done also to stop
the noise of the steam pipes, for Captain Walke thought he might slip
down at night without being seen or heard.

On the night of April 10, 1862, the boat made its dash down stream. It
started just as a heavy thunderstorm came on. The wind whistled, the
rain poured down in sheets, and the men in the forts hid from the storm.
They were not thinking then of runaway gunboats.

But something nobody had thought of now took place. The blazing wood in
the furnaces set fire to the soot in the chimneys, and in a minute the
boat was like a great flaming torch. As the men in the forts sprang up,
the lightning flashed out on the clouds, and lit up "the gallant little
ship floating past like a phantom."

The gunners did not mind the rain any more. They ran in great haste to
their guns, and soon the batteries were flaming and roaring louder than
the thunder itself.

Fort after fort took it up as the _Carondelet_ slid swiftly past. The
lightning and the blazing smoke-stack showed her plainly to the gunners.
But the bright flashes blinded their eyes so that they could not half
aim their guns. And thus it was that the brave little _Carondelet_ went
under the fire of fifty guns without being harmed.

Soon after that Island No. 10