When the _Clotilde_ sailed into American waters, the Africans were put into the hole--there to remain until relief came in capture or a successful landing. Three days before they landed, when the _Clotilde_ lay waiting behind the islands in Mississippi Sound and near the lower end of Mobile Bay, a bunch of green boughs was brought to them to show that the voyage was almost at an end. To make the hiding more secure, the _Clotilde_ was dismasted. Then Foster got into a small boat, rowed by four sailors to go to the western shore of Mobile Bay, intending to send word to Meaher that the _Clotilde_ had arrived. His approach was regarded with suspicion by some men ashore, and he was fired upon. Waving a white handkerchief their doubts were allayed and he offered fifty dollars for a conveyance which would take him to Mobile. CHAPTER VII THE RETURN The time of waiting had been an anxious one. The Meahers realized the risk. There had always been some, but during the absence of the _Clotilde_ great agitation had become rife throughout the country, and one of the things the Government had at last undertaken to do was to wipe out at once and forever the illegal traffic in slaves. The destination and purpose of the _Clotilde_ had been noised about, and Meaher realized that officials were watching his movements. Aside from the _Clotilde’s_ capture, he had little to fear, for every vestige of the conservatism which had so long held in restraint the abolitionism of the North and the temper of the South had disappeared; the two sections had drifted so far apart as to be virtually two countries; war clouds were looming large upon the horizon and differences had gone so far there could be no reconciliation. Garrison’s voice was ringing through the North characterizing Southerners as “thieves and robbers, men-stealers, and women-whippers” and calling loudly, “how can two walk together, except they agree? The slaveholder with his hands dripping in blood--will I make a compact with him? The man who plunders cradles--will I say to him ‘Brother, let us walk together in unity?’ The man who to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges women with the lash till the soil is red with blood--will I say to him, ‘Give me your hand; let us form a glorious union?’” Charges which were as a scourge to Southerners; goaded and angered, many began to talk of reopening the slave traffic. The question was agitated in Congress--a number of papers advocating it, not all of which were of the South. The New York _Day Book_, May 17, 1859, came out strongly for it. “Of course no one can suppose we doubt the right of bringing negroes from Africa if they are needed. It is simply a question of expediency, and there can be no doubt our laws making it piracy must be blotted out of the Statute Books. They are not only ridiculous, but utterly and wholly contemptible,” etc. From the point of view of a large class of Southerners these arguments were not fallacious. Yet they were