“Gentlemen,” said the owner, “this boat must be at St. Louis before the Belle Isle, if it’s only by a minute. 200 dollars a piece, gentlemen, if it’s done: if it’s not—well, gentlemen, I shall be sorry, very sorry—for if it’s not, gentlemen, you’ll have no more out of E. T. C. Crusset; he’ll be a gone coon—done, licked holler—gone to the Ovens, gentlemen.”
“If the boilers will stand, I could do it,” said one of the pilots; “but they’re old, and ought to have been looked to well this time.”
“Boilers or not, gentlemen, it’s to be done! I called at the Atlas this morning, and insured a lot of cases for a hundred times their value, and that may do for another throw if you do go down; they’re common red crockery, well packed with straw. I’ve insured them as New York goods. If they don’t have to pay, I paid a heavy premium, and find I’ve shipped the wrong goods and get part back; and they can’t grumble; if they do have to pay, they won’t know it, for the cases will be in the river; and you, gentlemen, know New Orleans too well to ‘blow’ on me, I know. In short, I mean it to be done.”
“But the passengers know the boat as well as we do.”
“D—n the passengers; if you don’t know how to stop their clamour, what the devil is this for in your waistcoat?” It looked most suspiciously like the stock of a revolver.
“Very well, sir, it shall be done, if it’s possible—if it must be done.”
“It must. Send the clerk here.”
“Mr. Walker, you’ll take the money for all the passengers as soon as you leave this. Don’t keep it on board; pay it in to my account as you get it—as you go up. Pay your wood bill in orders on me, here. Good day, sir. Pleasant trip.”
“Precious fool! That last bottle of Champagne may cost me that vessel and 50,000 dollars. I’ll take to claret like a fogy for the future. I must send that silk dress to Mrs. Crichton—she’ll make it all right with the Atlas secretary.”
The owner gone, there was all haste to get the vessel away. Fires shone brightly, and the long sigh of the steam, as it escaped up the funnels, mingling with the roar of the paddles, saddened beyond all power of utterance the hearts of Bertha and her husband.
Mile after mile of low, damp ground, so alike, that only a practised eye could detect that the vessel moved;—for there was no change of scene sufficient to indicate it; then some small villages passed; then a large belt of timber reaching away as far as the eye could see; then the long night, broken by the glare of torches and the shouting of men as they brought the wood on board; then silence; then the hot, still day, and the almost hotter night, and the fever on board. Carl first—the headache, the nausea, the languor, and Carl was down; then Bertha followed. Both down with that awful scourge, the yellow fever.
Some good woman took Fritz and Herman away, and waited on Carl and Bertha in their cabin as if they had been her children. Then the poor baby died, and in a remission of the fever they had hope the worst was over; she seemed so much better, she begged them to leave the child with her until the morning at least. They did.
The night was calm, and still as death; the stars seemed balls of fire; the air was as clear as ether—it obscured nothing; the fire-flies on the low ground could be seen from the vessel’s deck. So passed the night. The morning came.
The black waiters were arranging the last articles of the breakfast; the passengers, one by one, were dropping in out of their state rooms; the Captain was impatiently striding up and down the carpet, when the carpenter entered.
“Well, carpenter, how are we below?”
“Rather bad, sir.”
“Any gone!”
“Yes; three.”
“Ah! Who?”
“That Dutchman and his wife who joined at Algiers, and took one of the wheel cabins.”
“What, both?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a queer sight, too. She’s sitting up in the bunk, holding the baby, and looking at him, and he’s kneeling on the ground and looking up at her. It’s a queer sight, it is, too; they’re all three dead. I left ’em in case you’d like to see ’em.”
“No; I don’t care about it,” said Captain Burke. Some of the passengers went, however.
“Have they paid, Mr. Walker?”
“Rather, sir. I saw he was down, and knew if she stuck so close to him she’d have it too; so I made ’em pay up in case of accidents: saves trouble afterwards, you know.”
“What shall I do, sir?”
“Oh, make separate cases for them.”
“For the young ’un, sir?”
“I don’t know—heave it overboard; there’s no law against it for babies like that, that I know.”
“No, no, Massa Burke, dat ain’t done on dis yer boat. I’se knowed dis yer boat eber since she fust come on de river, and de like of dat’s neber been done afore. No, Massa Burke, dat ere chile’s buried like a Christian, if I know anytink.”
“Don’t put yourself out, steward.”
“No, Massa Burke, I no put myself out. I has dat ere chile buried proper; if not, I’se no nigger of yours, you know; more’s dese oders either,” said the excited steward, pointing to a line of black faces of his assistants, “Aire ye, boys?”
A sound of assent followed. “We’re no niggers of yours; and guess if you don’t give dat ere chile burial, we go ashore on the bluff, we do.”
“All right, steward,” said the amused captain, “you shall do what you like. Carpenter, make a separate case. Is it to be a separate one, steward, for the child?”
“Yes, Massa, sep’rate coffin for dat infant.”
“Please, sir, the pilot wants to see you in the wheel-house.”
“Is that her?”
“Get the glass,” said the pilot.
“That’s her, sure enough; she’s going, too: but we shall be over her to-day, if she don’t look out. I’ll tell Mr. Farr to see those fires well kept up now. I’ve saved a lot of knots for the race from last wooding.”
Now came a struggle; the Belle Isle was a-head but a few miles, and it was a race for stakes