Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-06-19


 thing weighs on my mind"
 "Done with you, for an hour any howl" said Ferry. "Just wait a min ute till run up and get my baccy." Presently down came the young fel- low again, meerschaum in hand, the moonlight glinting on his slender fig ure, so trim and jaunty in the battery l dress. Kinsey looked him over with smile of soldierly approval and a whim- sical comment on the contrast between the appearance of this young artillery sprig and that of his own stout per sonality, clad as he was in a bulging blue flannel sack coat, only distinguish able in cut and style from civilian garb by its having brass buttons and l pair of tarnished old shoulder straps. Ferry was 8 swell. His shell jacket | fitted like wax. The Russian shoulder knots of twisted gold were of the hand somest make. The riding brooches, l top boots and spurs were such that | even Waring could not criticise. His | saber gleamed in the moonbeams, and | Kinsey's old leather-covered sword looked dingy by contrast. His belt fitted trim and taut, and was polished as his boot-tops; Kinsey's sank down over the left hip, and was worn brown. The sash Ferry sported as battery off cer of the day was draped, West Point fashion, over the shoulder and around the waist, and accurately knotted and looped; Kinsey's old war-worn crimson net was slung higgledy-piggledy over his broad chest.
 What swells you fellows are, FerryI" he said, laughingly, as the l youngster came dancing down. ''Even old Doyle gets out here in his scarlet plume occasionally and puts us dough- [ boys to shame. Whats the use in trying to make such a rig as ours look soldierly? If it were not for the brass buttons our coats would make us look like parsons and our hats like monkeys. As for this undress, all that can be said in it's favor is you can't spoil it even by sleeping out on the levee in it, as am sometimes tempted to do. Let's go out there now"
 It was perhaps quarter of two when they took their seats on the wooden bench under the trees, and, lighting their pipes, gazed out over the broad sweeping flood of the Mississippi, gleaming like silvered shield in the moonlight. Far across at the opposite shore the low line of orange groves aud plantation houses and quarters was merged in one long streak of gloom, relieve only at intervals by twinkling light. Farther upstream, like dozing sea-dogs, the fleet of monitors lay moored along the bank, with the masts and roof of Algiers dimly outlined against the crescent sweep of lights that marked the levee of the great southern metropolis, still prostrate from the savage buffeting of the war, yet so soon to rouse from lethargy, re- sume her sway, and, stretching forth A her arms, to draw once again to her bosom the wealth and tribute, tenfold augmented, of the very heart of the nation, until, mistress of the commerce of a score of states, she should rival even New York in the volume of her trade. Below them, away to the east | towards English Turn, rolled the tawny flood, each ripple and eddy and swirling pool crested with silver-the twinkling lights at Chalmette barely distinguishable from dim, low-hanging stars. Midway the black hulk of some big ocean voyager was forging slowly steadily towards them, the red light o1 the port side already obscured, the white and green growing with every minute more and more distinct, and ! save the faint rustic of the leaves over head, murmuring under the touch ot the soft, southerly night wind, the splash of wavelet against the wooder pier, and the measured footfall of the sentry on the fagstone walk in iron of the sally-port, not sound was to bt } heard.
 For awhile they smoked in silence enjoying the beauty of the night } | though each was thinking only of tho storm that swept over the scene tho Sunday previous and of the tragedy that was borne upon it's wings At las l Kinsey shook himself together.
 "Ferry, sometimes l come out here for quiet smoke and think. Did il ever occur to you what fearful force } what illimitable power, there is sweep ! ing by us here night after night witt } never a sound?"
 !, "Oh, you mean the Mississip," sait } Ferry, hippantly. "It would be case O.
 mops and brooms, fancy, if she were . to bust through the bank and sweel us out into the swamps."
 , Exactly! that's in case she broke loose, as you say; but even when in thu shafts, as she is now, between thu l levees, how long would it take her tC sweep a fellow from here out into thu t gulf, providing nothing interposed t. t stop him?"
 Matter of simple mathematical cal :. culation," said Ferry, practically - "They say it's an eight-mile curren y \ easy out there in the middle wher r she's booming. Look at that barre s scooting down yonder. Now, I'd lay d flyer could cut loose from here a j. reveille and shoot the passes befor e taps and never pull stroke. It's les }! than eighty miles down to the forts. y "Well, then, a skif like that that ol @ Anatole's blaspheming about losin l. wouldn't take very long to ride owe
 that route, would it?" said Kinsey, re @ fectively.
 e "No, not If allowed to slide. Bu v somebody'd be sure to put out and hau o 1t in as a prize-fiotsam and wha d you-may-call-'em. You see these ol e niggers all along here with their slifl