For a second Anna stared, Miranda wrinkling; but then, with her eyes on the fleet, she shook her head: "You're mighty good, 'Randa, you and Con, never to have asked me in all these months; but neither he nor Hilary nor I will ever tell that. I wish none of us knew it. For one thing, we don't, any of us, know clearly enough what really happened. Dear Fred Greenleaf!--if he _does_ wear the blue, and _is_ right now over there behind Fort Gaines!" She stood a moment pondering a fact not in the Union soldier's letter at all; that only through his masterful, self-sacrificing intercession in military court had Hilary escaped the death of a spy. But then her thought came back to Miranda's request: "I can't tell you, for I can't tell Con. Flora's her cousin, through Steve, and if she ever marries Captain Irby she'll be Hilary's cousin, and--" There, suddenly and once for all, the theme was dropped. Some man's quick word broke in. Fort Morgan had veiled itself in the smoke of its own broadside. Now came its thunder and the answering flame and roar of the _Brooklyn's_ bow-chaser. The battle had begun. The ship, still half a mile from its mark, was coming on as straight as her gun could blaze, her redskin ally at her side, and all the others, large and less, bounding after by twos. And now in lurid flash and steady roar the lightning and thunder darted and rolled from Morgan, its water-battery, and the Mobile squadron, and from the bow guns of the _Brooklyn_ and _Hartford_. How marvelously fire, din and smoke shriveled up the time, which the captain's small clock so mincingly ticked off. A cabin-boy brought a fragrant tray of breakfast, but the grateful ladies could only laugh at it. There was no moment to observe even the few pretty sail-boats which the fearful import and majesty of the strife lured down about them on the light side-wind. "Has the _Tennessee_ not fired yet?" anxiously asked Anna, but no one was sure. Across the breeze, that kept the near side of the picture uncurtained, she perfectly saw the _Tecumseh_ close abreast of the flashing, smoke-shrouded fort, the _Brooklyn_ to windward abreast of both, and the Hartford at the Brooklyn's heels with her signal fluttering to all behind, "Close order." "Why don't the ships--?" Anna had it on her lips to cry, when the whole sunward side of the _Brooklyn,_ and then of the _Hartford,_ vomited fire, iron and blinding, strangling smoke into the water-battery and the fort, where the light air held it. God's mercy! you could see the cheering of the fleet's crews, which the ear could barely gather out of the far uproar, and just as it floated to the gazers they beheld the _Tecumseh_ turn square toward them and head straight across the double line of torpedoes for the _Tennessee._