"What have you done with my brother Jimmy?"
Mart Highton sprang to his feet, pale with anger, and, with one great stride, came to where Lottie was sitting.
At midday the big "dug-out," called La Belle Acadienne, paddled up to the landing, under the charge of an old creole, who was to take Eph Clark to New Orleans and then to lodgings at a French house, when Eph was to seek an interview with the governor and carry out the instructions he had received.
The Belle Acadienne had an awning over her after part, where the passengers would be protected from the night-damp; and there were lots of things to eat, with a cooking place forward, presided over by a grizzled old negro, who produced some very nice dishes from his few pots and pans.
The "padron," or head of the boat, and six paddlers, made up, with Eph and Eric and the old Creole, ten in all.
As soon as the passengers were on board, the canoe went away, almost north, up the bay.
By nightfall they had entered a deep but narrow bayou, and then there was a fresh surprise for Eph and Eric.
In the bow of the canoe, hanging well over the water, was an iron crane, which supported a grating, on which was kept burning, after dark, chunks of fat pine, which lit up everything around with a rich, yellow light.
As they got farther into the bayou, the banks seemed to disappear, and they were, as it appeared to Eph--who had never been in such a country--navigating between rows of huge trees, gray with moss, which hung from the branches in long festoons, like giant cobwebs.
The fire-light, glowing on the surroundings, showed the most surprising things to the boys, although the crew seemed to think nothing of them. Out of the darkness, among the trees and bushes, would peer two bright marks, which the men said was a deer.
Then would come a great plash in the still water of the bayou, and the pine knots showed a huge alligator, sulkily sinking, and apparently uncertain whether to make fight or not, at this invasion of his territory.
Great gar-fish shot away from the canoe as she went on, and big owls hooted at being disturbed, sometimes flapping almost into the burning knots. Herons, and other large birds flopped up from points where they had been fishing, and sailed away up the bayou with great croaks and hoarse calls, which were answered from the darkness of the dense bush and high trees by paroquets and many other birds and animals, disturbed in their slumbers by the unusual invasion.