After this exciting run-in our first business was to repair damages and ship our cargo on board; but at the last moment, when she was completely loaded, with steam up and all ready for a start, we nearly lost the _Banshee_ by fire. Steele and I were busy settling things in the office on shore, when all at once, on looking out of the window, I saw volumes of smoke coming from her deck cargo of cotton; we jumped into a boat, but by the time we got alongside she was one sheet of flame. It looked like a hopeless case. Steele, however, gave immediate orders to get the steam hose at work, breast her off from the wharf, and to let go anchor in mid stream; thus bringing her head to tide, but stern to wind. The fire, being all forward, made it difficult to reach the forecastle so as to let go the anchor; but our good friend Halpin (who then commanded a blockade-runner called the _Eugénie_) gallantly came to our assistance, at the risk of his life boarded us forward, and knocked out the cutter which held the chain cable, but not before his clothes were on fire: it was a sight to see him take a header into the river, causing the water to hiss again. He undoubtedly saved our ship that day. Poor Halpin—I have lately read of his death—he was as fine and generous-hearted a man as ever lived, and was afterwards as successful at cable-laying as blockade-running. By dint of hard work we got the fire under, and a tough job it was fighting with ignited turpentine, of which we had several barrels on deck, and blazing cotton. We found that, with the exception of having our turtle back destroyed and our deck, bulwarks, and new foremast charred, she had not received much serious damage, and after shipping a fresh deck cargo we went to sea next night and crossed to Nassau, where they were astonished to see the plight we were in, thinking we had had a fire at sea. It was, I think, on our sixth trip out in the little _Banshee_, when soon after daylight we had got safely through the fleet, and I was lying on a cotton bale aft, that Erskine, the chief engineer, suddenly exclaimed, "Mr. Taylor, look astern!" I looked, and not four miles from us I saw a large side-wheel cruiser, with square sails set, coming down on us hand over fist. This was an instance of gross carelessness on the part of the look-out man at the masthead (he turned out to be an American whom we had shipped in Nassau, on the previous trip, and about whom both Steele and I had our private suspicions). At such a critical moment as the approach of daylight the chief officer should have chosen a picked man for the look-out. After this we were more careful: either the chief officer or I myself, when on board, making it a point to occupy this post at that particular hour.