Farnham Bishop

“ The rocket-flare died down as the Southern Belle, in her skipper's phrase, “lit out of thar right sudden.” She had a good head of steam bottled up in her boilers, and her big paddle-wheels shot her light, shallow hull ahead and around in a sweeping curve that carried her safely past her adversary's stern and over a broad shoal where the heavier Northern gunboat could not follow. More rockets and broadsides blazed from the Hoboken, but the only result was to shoot away the gilt trotting-horse that hung between the river-boat's spouting smoke-stacks. ”

“ That's what I mean, Captain Gifford, by the legal blockade.”
“Oh, ye do, eh?” shrilled the indignant eighteen-twelver, his voice breaking into falsetto with age and wrath. “So you think you'll teach sea-law and sea-fighting to me, who taught you all you ever learned, and scandalous little it was! So you think I'm to be stationed in Okra Sound just to catch fishing-boats and oyster-sloops, and to lend a color of law to your gay and care-free privateering off Nassau! I'll bet my next six months' pay against yours that in that time the Hoboken makes more prize money than the Plattsburg.” ”

“ THE skipper of the blockade-runner Gray Fox shook his head as he looked at the cruiser following astern.
She can't overhaul us or work up within range, but we can't shake her off. We haven't gained or lost the half of a knot between us since she sighted us at dawn. I thought we had the legs of anything in the Yankee Navy.”
“It's their crack war-steamer, the Plattsburg, and no error,” said the mate, standing beside the captain on the railed top of the port paddle-box. “If we can keep ahead of her we haven't much to fear from the rest of them.” ”

“ The sea-chests forward, the staterooms aft, were packed tight with private ventures. One lucky voyage out and back would more than pay the entire cost of ship and cargo, with a handsome profit besides. Small wonder that the Clyde and Tyneside yards were busy turning out fast new ships for such a trade.
Fastest and newest of them all was the Gray Fox, and her cargo was the richest ever carried out of Nassau. She was worth, as she floated then, at least two million dollars, and the Plattsburg's crew were already spending the prize-money. ”

“ HALLETT pointed to the trim sloop-of-war Plattsburg, lying in the Potomac by with a red flag at her main, taking aboard her powder and shell from the lighter moored alongside. The fleetest cruiser in the whole United States Navy, she was worth commanding in those days when a richly laden blockade-runner brought a small fortune in prize-money to her captors. ”

“ Jonathan Gifford slipped his cable and started up the channel as fast as he could steam, hoping to intercept and cut off the fugitive before she reached the shelter of the fort's guns. But the Hoboken was no racer; sunrise found the Southern Belle safe above the mine-field and the fat ferry-boat waddling discontentedly back to her old cruising-ground. ”

“ She looked like a fat apple-woman chasing a predatory small boy, and with about as much chance of success. The Gray Fox was already half a mile ahead and drawing close to the shelter of the mine-field before the Hoboken's crew could clear away the rest of the wreckage and bring the pivot-gun to bear.
“Stand aside, boy,” commanded Captain Gifford. “I'll lay this gun myself.”
The ferry-boat was bobbing up and down in the steamer's wake, and the big smooth-bore was an awkward piece to aim. But the eighteen-twelver had learned his trade on far less stable decks, with far more primitive guns. ”

“ It is like this, captain. The best way for us to capture the fast British blockade-runners that have been slipping into the Southern ports with munitions and out again with cotton is to intercept them on the open sea between our coast and Nassau. ”

“ Like what a hunter gets when he starts to shoot his first deer. It was my first try at torpedoing a ship, and all of a sudden my hands took to shaking so powerful hard that befo' I knew it I'd brought the ends of both wiahs together and closed the circuit. ”