So the protests had come in, though the gleaming eyes of the little negroes had shown their delight in the fantastic idea. "But I'd walk on a cloud, like the saint in the picture," Idyl had insisted. "And my feet wouldn't touch the mud, and when the runaways looked into my face, they'd try to be good and go back to their masters. Nobody would hurt me. Tired horses would be glad to see my light, and everybody would love me." So, first laughingly, and then as a matter of habit, she had come to be known as "Saint Idyl." As she stands quite still, with face uplifted, out on the levee this evening, one is reminded in looking at her of the "Maid of Domremi" listening to the voices. Idyl was in truth listening to voices--voices new, strange, and solemn--voices of heavy, distant cannon. It was the 23d of April, 1862. A few miles below Bijou Plantation Farragut's fleet was storming the blockade at Fort Jackson. All along the lower Mississippi it was a time of dread and terror. The negroes, for the most part awed and terror-stricken, muttered prayers as they went about, and all night long sang mournfully and shouted and prayed in the churches or in groups in their cabins, or even in the road. The war had come at last. Its glare was upon the sky at night, and all day long reiterated its persistent staccato menace: "Boom-m-m! Gloom-m-m! Tomb-b-b! Doom-m-m!" The air had never seemed to lose the vibratory tremor, "M-m-m!" since the first gun, nearly six days ago. It was as if the lips of the land were trembling. And the trembling lips of the black mothers, as they pressed their babes to their bosoms, echoed the wordless terror. Death was in the air. Had they doubted it? In a field near by a shell had fallen, burying itself in the earth, and, exploding, had sent two men into the air, killing one and returning the other unhurt. Now the survivor, saved as by a miracle, was preaching "The Wrath to Come." To quote from himself, he had "been up to heaven long enough to get 'ligion." He had "gone up a lost sinner and come down a saved soul. Bless Gord!" Regarding his life as charmed, the blacks followed him in crowds, while he descanted upon the text: "Then two shall be in the field. One shall be taken and the other left." A great revival was in progress. But this afternoon the levee at Bijou had been the scene of a new panic. Rumor said that the blockade chain had been cut. Farragut's war monsters might any moment come snorting up the river. Nor was this all. The only local defence here was a volunteer artillery company of "Exempts." Old "Captain Doc," their leader, also local druggist and postmaster (doctor and minister only in emergency), was a unique and picturesque figure. Full of bombast as of ultimate kindness of feeling, he was equally happy in all of his four offices.