That ended the difficulties of the flotilla. The enemy, once brought face to face with Sherman's men, departed abruptly; and soon the doughty general, mounted on an old gray horse, came riding down to the edge of the bayou, for a word with Porter. Seeing the admiral on the deck of his gunboat, he shouted out, "Hallo! Porter, what did you get into such an ugly scrape for? So much for you navy fellows getting out of your element. Better send for the soldiers always. My boys will put you through. Here's your little nigger. He came through all right, and I started at once. Your gunboats are enough to scare the crows: they look as if you had got a terrible hammering." Somewhat crestfallen, Porter remarked, that he "never knew what helpless things iron-clads could become when they got in a ditch, and had no soldiers about." As Sherman declined to come aboard, Porter went below to look after his two prisoners. "Well, gentlemen," said he, as he entered the cabin, "you were right. We are surrounded by troops." The two Confederates were greatly exultant, but assured Porter that they would see that he was kindly treated when taken into Vicksburg. "To Vicksburg!" said he with mock amazement. "Who said any thing of Vicksburg?" "Why, of course you'll be taken there as a prisoner, now that our men have surrounded you." "Oh, you are mistaken there!" responded Porter. "The troops by whom I am surrounded are Sherman's boys, six thousand strong." And at this news the chagrined captives subsided, and began to consider the prospects of a trip to the North, and incarceration in one of the military prisons. Sherman's army soon came up in force, and went into camp along the road that skirted the levee. As night fell, the scene took on a wild and picturesque air. In the narrow bayou lay the gunboats, strung out in single file along a line of half a mile. They bore many signs of the hard knocks they had received in their excursion through the woods. Boats, davits, steam-pipes, and every thing breakable that rose above the level of the deck, had been swept away by the overhanging boughs, or dashed to pieces by falling trees. The smoke-stacks and wheel-houses were riddled by the bullets of the Confederate sharp-shooters. The decks were covered with rubbish of all kinds, and here and there was a fissure that told of the bursting of some Confederate shell. The paint was blistered, and peeling off, from the effects of the cotton-fire through which the fleet had dashed. On the shore blazed the camp-fires of Sherman's troops; and about the huge flaming piles the weary soldiers threw themselves down to catch a moment's rest, while the company cooks prepared the evening meal. Many of the idle soldiers strolled down to the edge of the bayou, and, forming a line along the levee, began chaffing the sailors on the ludicrous failure of their attempt to perform naval evolutions in a swamp.