Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/281

Rh water, for the moon was that evening at her full, and it was high tide.

At ebb-tide, therefore, the next morning, we found ourselves lying entirely on dry land, with green grass growing around us, and just by a grove of live-oaks and flowering Magnolia-trees, which latter, may have exercised some mysterious attractive power upon our poor little Magnolia, which now lies with its head turned towards the grove, just as if it would plough its way right into it.

We were quite fast. And we are still sticking quite fast now on the 17th, amid the green grass and the clay, saluted in the evenings by the whistling notes of the whip-poor-will, from the Magnolia-grove, and in the morning by brilliant butterflies. A whole regiment of negro slaves are busied in digging around the keel of the vessel, to loosen it out of the sand and the clay, but thereby only to reveal the depth to which it is imbedded.

On the first day, we said; “When the tide comes up in the evening, then——”

But when the tide came up it did not rise as high as on the preceding evening, and the moon, now past the full, looked down upon us coldly and let us lie where we lay.

“In the morning, when the steam-boat, ‘the Gaston,’ passes by,” we now said, “it will give us a pull and help us off!” and Miss Mac I. proposed that all the ladies should, on the approach of the Gaston, come on deck, and show themselves with handkerchiefs to their eyes, and so move, by that means, the probably hard heart of the captain of the Gaston.

The morrow came and the smoke of the Gaston was seen, and the smoke of hope ascended from our hearts.

The Gaston approached, paused, looked at us. The tide was in. We were full of anticipation of the Gaston's “pull.” But the hard-hearted Gaston only looked at us and went on his way, and left us to our fate on dry