pe
acquaintance with Fort McRae, for there would be nothing in the
soundings to indicate the approach to this dangerous neighbor.

Nothing more was heard of the guard-boat, though the section of
artillery continued to discharge shells into the fog for a short time.
On the other side of the bay Fort Barrancas kept up its fire at long
intervals, and Fort Pickens could not reply without the danger of
putting a shot into the Teaser after her recent reformation. The steamer
kept on her course at half speed; but in ten minutes the sound of the
drum fell astern of her, when the drummer could go no farther.

"Heave over the wheel, Beeks," said Christy.

Then he rang the bell to go ahead at full speed.

CHAPTER XXIII

ANOTHER NIGHT EXPEDITION

With the drum still beating on the shore, the Teaser rounded the
northwestern point of the island, when the wheel was heaved over.
Christy was entirely confident in regard to the navigation, for he had
steered the Bellevite through the same channel when on an excursion a
year before. But he had daylight and sunshine at that time instead of
fog and gloom as on the present occasion.

"Buoy on the starboard, sir!" reported the leadsman on that side.

"Buoy on the port hand!" cried the man on the other side, a minute
later.

"We are all right," added the lieutenant. "We are between the middle
ground and the island. The buoy on the port is the southwest point of
the island."

The Bellevite was not the only man-of-war that lay off Pensacola, for
the Brooklyn and other vessels were there to assist in the defence of
Fort Pickens, which the enemy were determined to capture if possible.
The government had done everything within its means to "hold the fort,"
though an army of about ten thousand men had been gathered in the
vicinity to reduce it. The dry-dock which had floated near Warrenton,
and which the Confederates intended to sink in the channel, had been
burned, and a force of Unionists, including the Zouaves, called "The Pet
Lambs," had been quartered on the island of Santa Rosa. It had looked
for several days as though the enemy were preparing for a movement in
retaliation for the destruction of the dry-dock, which was a bad
set-back for them.

The getting to sea of the Teaser had no connection with this movement,
it appeared afterwards, and if Lieutenant Passford's enterprise had been
carried out only an hour or two later, he would have found the situation
quite differe