"Exactly! that's in case she broke loose, as you say; but even when in the shafts, as she is now, between the levees, how long would it take her to sweep a fellow from here out into the gulf, providing nothing interposed to stop him?" "Matter of simple mathematical calculation," said Ferry, practically. "They say it's an eight-mile current easy out there in the middle where she's booming. Look at that barrel scooting down yonder. Now, I'd lay a fiver I could cut loose from here at reveille and shoot the passes before taps and never pull a stroke. It's less than eighty miles down to the forts." "Well, then, a skiff like that that old Anatole's blaspheming about losing wouldn't take very long to ride over that route, would it?" said Kinsey, reflectively. "No, not if allowed to slide. But somebody'd be sure to put out and haul it in as a prize,--flotsam and what-you-may-call-'em. You see these old niggers all along here with their skiffs tacking on to every hit of drift-wood that's worth having." "But, Ferry, do you think they'd venture out in such a storm as Sunday last?--think anything could live in it short of a decked ship?" "No, probably not. Certainly not Anatole's boat." "Well, that's just what I'm afraid of, and what Cram and Reynolds dread." "Do they? Well, so far as that storm's concerned, it would have blown it down-stream until it came to the big bend below here to the east. Then, by rights, it ought to have blown against the left bank. But every inch of it has been scouted all the way to quarantine. The whole river was filled with drift, though, and it might have been wedged in a lot of logs and swept out anyhow. Splendid ship, that! Who is she, do you suppose?" The great black hull with its lofty tracery of masts and spars was now just about opposite the barracks, slowly and majestically ascending the stream. "One of those big British freight steamers that moor there below the French Market, I reckon. They seldom come up at night unless it's in the full of the moon, and even then they move with the utmost caution. See, she's slowing up now." "Hello! Listen! What's that?" exclaimed Ferry, starting to his feet. A distant, muffled cry. A distant shot. The sentry at the sally-port dashed through the echoing vault, then bang! came the loud roar of his piece, followed by the yell of-- "Fire! fire! _The guard!_"