There had come to Eddring the lightning-like conviction that he was now suddenly flung into the chief crisis of his life. He looked hard at the widening gap of black water between him and the shore, and at the hurrying floods into which the boat was now beginning steadily to plow; but the night and the floods gave him no answer. He knew that he had taken upon himself responsibility for two women, one of whom he believed to have been practically a victim of abduction--this woman whom he had loved for years, had lost, and lost again, but who was now here, under his care, dependent on his own courage, his own resolution and decision. It was but for a moment that Eddring hesitated. The heart of the great boat throbbed on beneath him, but even with her strong pulse there rose his own resolve. He left the forward deck and passed back to seek out the clerk. "Go tell the captain of this boat to come to me," said he. "What do you mean? Who are you?" the clerk asked. "I must see the captain," Eddring answered with a wave of the hand, and again turned away. Perhaps it was the very stress of that moment which finally indeed brought Captain Wilson of the _Opelousas Queen_ into the presence of his enigmatical passenger. "Well, sir?" cried Wilson, as he approached, "what can I do for _you?_" "Captain Wilson," said Eddring, quietly, "I want to take your boat off her regular run. I have got to get up the river, and I am afraid the roads are wiped out." The river-man's astonishment at this bade fair to end in explosion. "My boat!" he ejaculated. "Quit my run?" "Yes," said Eddring. "I'll explain to you later the necessity I have for getting up the river quickly--and why it means that I have got to have your boat." "Have my boat!" said Wilson, his voice sinking into an inarticulate whisper. "And me with mail, and passengers, and freight to leave from Plaquemine to St. Louis! Have my boat! Have my----" "Put your passengers off at Baton Rouge in the morning. Transfer your mails there. Let everything get through the best it can. It can wait. As for me, I can't wait; I must go through direct." Wilson endeavored to look at him calmly. "If you talk that way to me much longer," said he, "I'll say you're surely crazy." "I'll see you about it in the morning," said Eddring, quietly. His singleness of purpose had its effect. Captain Wilson abruptly turned on his heel. Meantime Miss Lady and Madame Delchasse had drawn apart in their own excitement, exclaiming only against the fact that this boat, so far from crossing the river, was now forging steadily upstream. Along the distant bends there could be seen the black masses of shadow, picked out here and there by the star-like points of the channel lights; while the low banks of the western shore, dimly indicated by the ferry lights, slowly slipped away.