retrogressive and their revival put the South out of harmony with ethical and intellectual progress, and defeated the hopes of those of larger vision. Early in 1859 the Mobile papers lent their support to the question. Mobilians, like all of the South, were tried to their utmost, and Meaher knew if all due secrecy was observed, he had little to fear from them. Captain Foster reached Mobile on a Sunday morning in August (1859) with the secret that the _Clotilde_ lay behind the islands in Mississippi Sound. Arrangements had long been made that a tug should lie in readiness to go at a moment’s notice down Mobile Bay to tow the _Clotilde_ and her cargo to safety. When the news came, the tug’s pilot was attending service at St. John’s Church. Captain Jim Meaher and James Dennison--a negro slave--hurried to the church. Dennison remained outside while Meaher went in to call the pilot. The three hastened down to the wharf, and were soon aboard the tug _Billy Jones_, steaming rapidly down the bay. Late afternoon found them nearing the _Clotilde_, but they waited for the darkness. The most dangerous part of the adventure was still ahead--the trip up Mobile Bay. At the mouth the marshes and islands offered protection; if they could once reach the delta of the Mobile River, with its desolate stretches of marsh, its deep rivers and intricate bayous, safety was almost assured. But the bay lay smilingly open between two long arms of land. Her wonderful beauty under the gorgeous August sunset was lost upon the watchers; they prayed for the light to fade and for mysterious night with its enshrouding darkness. At last as if loath to die, the color was gone; sea and sky melted together into almost impenetrable grayness. They ceased their vigils and fell to a quick activity; lines were thrown, the _Clotilde_ made fast, and the trip up the bay was begun. Her wooded shores had echoed the voices of many peoples and the sounds from many craft, but never any more epoch-making--those from the last slave ship--the voyage nearing its finish which ended forever among Anglo-Saxon people the darkest blot upon their civilization. The chugging sound of the tug’s machinery filled the Tarkars with terrified wonder; at last they concluded that it was the swarming of bees. Time was precious and the darkness doubly so; much was still to be done before day with its light should come. These hours might mean life or death. The trip up the bay was safely made. The tug avoided the Mobile River channel, slipped behind the light-house on Battery Gladden, into Spanish River. This lay in the midst of the marsh and with its circuitous windings was not more than ten miles long. As the _Clotilde_ passed opposite Mobile the clock in the old Spanish tower struck eleven, and the watchman’s voice floated over the city and across the marshes, “Eleven o’clock and all’s well.”