The space between the fleets is gradually lessening. The Yankees are not retreating, but advancing. A shot strikes the Little Rebel. One tears through the General Price. Another through the General Bragg. Commodore Montgomery is above the city, and begins to fall back. He is not ready to come to close quarters. Fifteen minutes pass by, but it seems not more than two. How fast one lives at such a time! All of your senses are quickened. You see everything, hear everything. The blood rushes through your veins. Your pulse is quickened. You long to get at the enemy,--to sweep over the intervening space, lay your boat alongside, pour in a broadside, and knock them to pieces in a twinkling! You care nothing for the screaming of the shot, the bursting of the shells. You have got over all that. You have but one thought,--_to tear down that hateful flaunting flag, to smite the enemies of your country into the dust_! While this cannonade was going on, I noticed the two rams casting loose from the shore. I heard the tinkle of the engineer's bell for more fire and a full head of steam. The sharpshooters took their places. The Queen came out from the shelter of the great cottonwoods, crossed the river, and passed down between the Benton and Carondelet. Colonel Ellet stood beside the pilot, and waved his hand to us on board the Jessie Benton. The Monarch was a little later, and, instead of following in the wake of the Queen, passed between the Cairo and the St. Louis. See the Queen! Her great wheels whirl up clouds of spray, and leave a foaming path. She carries a silver train sparkling in the morning light. She ploughs a furrow, which rolls the width of the river. Our boat dances like a feather on the waves. She gains the intervening space between the fleets. Never moved a Queen so determinedly, never one more fleet,--almost leaping from the water. The Stars and Stripes stream to the breeze beneath the black banner unfolding, expanding, and trailing far away from her smoke-stacks. There is a surging, hissing, and smothered screaming of the pent-up steam in her boilers, as if they had put on all energy for the moment. They had;--flesh, blood, bones, iron, brass, steel,--animate and inanimate,--were nerved up for the trial of the hour! Officers and men behold her in astonishment and admiration. For a moment there is silence. The men stand transfixed by their guns, forgetting their duties. Then the Rebel gunners, as if moved by a common impulse, bring their guns to bear upon her. She is exposed on the right, on the left, and in front. It is a terrible cross-fire. Solid shot scream past. Shells explode around her. She is pierced through and through. Her timbers crack. She quivers beneath the shock, but does not falter. On--on--faster--straight towards the General Beauregard.