inner, and when they didn't get it, they took
to the woods, about fifty of them. The soldiers had to get their dinner
before they would start out after them; and that is the reason the
schooners are not full now, sir, and not a bale had been put into this
steamer."

"But she seems to be fully loaded now."

"Yes, sir; Captain Lonley paid the soldiers that were left to load the
Havana. They worked till eleven in the evening; they were not used to
that kind of work, and they got mighty tired, I can tell you," said
Dolly, with the first smile Christy had seen on his yellow face, for he
appeared to enjoy the idea of a squad of white men doing niggers' work.

"That was what made them sleep so soundly, and leave the battery on the
point to take care of itself," said Christy. "Where were the officers?"

"Two of them have gone on the hunt for the hands, and I reckon the
captain is on a visit to a planter who has a daughter, about forty miles
from here."

"The soldiers were sleeping very soundly in the barrack about two this
morning; and perhaps they were also stimulated with apple jack," added
Christy. "Did you drink any of it, Dolly?"

"No, sir, I never drink any liquor, for I am a preacher," replied the
oiler, with a very serious and solemn expression on his face.

"How do you happen to be a greaser on a steamer if you are a preacher?"

"I worked on a steamer on the Alabama River before I became a preacher,
and I took it up again. I was raised in a preacher's family, and worked
in the house."

He talked as though he had been educated, but he could neither read nor
write, and had picked up all his learning by the assistance of his ears
alone. But Christy had ascertained all he wished to know in regard to
the schooners, and he was prepared to carry out his mission in the bay.
At the fort it appeared that all the commissioned officers were absent
from the post, and the men, after exhausting themselves at work to which
they were unaccustomed, had taken to their bunks and were sleeping off
the fatigue, and perhaps the effects of the apple jack. While he was
thinking of the matter, the gong struck, and Christy stopped the engine.

"Do you know anything about an engine, Dolly?" he asked, turning to the
oiler.

"Yes, sir; I run the engine of the Havana over here from Mobile,"
replied Dolly. "I can do it as well as any one, if they will only trust
me."

"Then stand by the machine, and obey the bells if they are struck,"