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we thought, unusually bright.
Venus was still three hours high, at sunset, and looked provokingly beautiful, and brilliant, shedding as much light as a miniature moon.
To-night —the 23d—the moon would not rise until seven minutes past eleven, and this would be ample time, in which to escape, or be captured.
I had some anxiety about the weather, however, independently of the phase of the moon, as in this climate of the gods, there is no such thing as a dark night, if the sky be clear.
The morning of the 23d of November dawned provokingly clear.
It clouded a little toward noon, but, long before sunset, the clouds had blown off, and the afternoon became as bright, and beautiful, as the most ardent lover of nature in her smiling moods, could desire.
But time pressed, and it was absolutely necessary to be moving.
Messengers had been sent hither, and thither, by the enemy, to hunt up a reinforcement of gun-boats, and if several of these should arrive, escape would be almost out of the question.
Fortune had favored us, thus far, but we must now help ourselves.
The
Iroquois was not only twice as heavy as the
Sumter, in men, and metal, as the reader has seen, but she had as much as two or three knots, the hour, the speed of her. We must escape, if at all, unseen of the enemy, and as the latter drew close in with the harbor, every night, in fraud of the promise he had made, and in violation of the laws of war, this would be difficult to do. Running all these reasons rapidly through my mind, I resolved to make the attempt, without further delay.
I gave orders to the first lieutenant, to see that every person belonging to the ship was on board, at sundown, and directed him to make all the necessary preparations for getting his anchor, and putting the ship under steam, at eight P. M.—the hour of gun-fire; the gun at the garrison to be the signal for moving.
The ship was put in her best sailing trim, by removing some barrels of wet provisions aft, on the quarter-deck; useless spars were sent down from aloft, and the sails all ‘mended,’ that is, snugly furled.
Every man was assigned his station, and the crew were all to be at quarters, a few minutes before the appointed hour of moving.
I well recollect the tout ensemble of that scene.
The waters of the bay were of glassy smoothness.
