steam enough to start the engines. The order was given to go ahead and the engine was started. Slowly at first, but with increasing velocity it relieved the strain on our cables, when, just as we had begun to have hopes that we were saved, there was a crash in the engine room and we knew that the wooden cogs had broken again! For two hours the engineers worked to repair the damage, and fortunately during this time the anchors held so well that the ship's progress toward destruction was very little, if any. It was a long and anxious two hours, and above the roar of the wind we could hear the yells of triumph emanating from the throats of those black devils waiting for the catastrophe which was to put us in their power, to say nothing of the loot they expected to get out of the wreck of the ship. At last the engine began to revolve again at first—very slowly, and we anxiously followed each revolution in mortal dread that it would break down again, but as it increased in power and took the strain off of our anchors we commenced to breathe freely again. Then came the welcome order to weigh the port anchor, and after an interval the other was also catheaded; but the progress we made away from the—shore was woefully slow in the teeth of that gale. When day at last came we were clear of the danger and well out at sea with a clear appreciation of Jack's sympathy in a storm for "the poor people ashore in danger of having their heads broken by falling tiles from the roofs." It was a most narrow and fortunate escape for us slaveholders, as had we not been drowned in the surf, we most assuredly should have been either murdered on the shore, or, worse still, sold into slavery in accordance with the custom of the Moors in disposing of their prisoners. Even if our fate had ever become known to the outside world, there was no nation on earth that would have lifted a voice for our release, save the helpless and unrecognized "Confederate States" which were already doomed for doomed for extinction.
I have always called this episode "the Confederacy's only at last clear of the
