It is a moonless night, and what light the stars might furnish is withheld by a blanket-screen of thick clouds. No night could be darker; for, lest an occasional star find a cloud-rift and peer through, a fog drifts up from the river. This is good for the English, since it hides their watch fires, which one by one are lost in the mists. The darkness deepens until even the hawk-eyed hunting-shirt men, trained by much night fighting to a nocturnal keenness of vision, are unable to make out their nearest comrades. The pitch blackness, and the fog chill creeping over him, tell on Papa Plauche. He whispers sorrowfully to his friend St. Geme. “Neighbor St. Geme,” he says, “these differences should be adjusted by argument, and not by deadly guns. I see that he who would either shoot or be shot by his fellow-man; is in an erroneous position.” Before the kindly St. Geme may frame response, a liquid tongue of flame illuminates the broad dark bosom of the river. It is followed sharply by a crashing “Boom!” This is the word from the _Carolina._ The signal carries dismay into the hearts of the English, since Commodore Patterson, whose genius is thoroughgoing, is at pains to load the gun with two pecks of slugs, and eighty-four killed and wounded are the red English harvest of that one discharge. The frightened drums beat the alarm, and the ranks of English form. As they grasp their arms the nine broadside guns of the Carolina begin to rake them. With this the English fall slowly back from the river. The rearward movement, while managed slowly because of the darkness, brings discouraging results. The English retreat into the hunting-shirt men, who are skirmishing up from the cypress swamp. The English are first told of this new danger by the spitting flashes which remind them of needles of fire, and the crack of the long squirrel rifles like the snapping of a whip. Here and there, too, a groan is heard, as the sightless lead finds some English breast. This augments the blind horror of the hour. The trapped English reply in a desultory fashion, and make a bad matter worse. The hunting-shirt men locate them by the flash of their guns, at which they shoot with incredible quickness and accuracy. With men falling like November's leaves, the English give ground to the south, which saves them somewhat from both the _Carolina_ and the hunting-shirt men. Guessing the English direction, the hunting-shirt men follow, loading and firing as they advance. Now and then a hunting-shirt man overtakes an individual foe, and settles the national differences which divide them with tomahawk and knife. It is cruel work--this unseeing bloodshed in the dark, and disturbingly new to the English, who express their dislike for it. [Illustration: 0193]