"The ground is low here," said the pilot; "but I think we can carry eight feet up to the knoll on which the houses stood. They must have had eight or nine in some parts of it, or the cabins of the niggers wouldn't have been upset."
"I think we can hurry her a little along here," I replied, ringing the speed-bell.
"He threw the lead into a hole that time," added the pilot.
"You will hold that all the way till you get to the knoll," said Mr. Bell. "We are going at a rattling speed."
"We shall be all right as long as we have eight feet. Our coal bunkers are pretty well emptied, and I don't know but we could go with seven and a half. It is plain sailing; but we must feel along when it gets down to eight and a half," I replied.
The two men who had been taken from the water came to the forecastle at this moment. They were covered with yellow mud, and of course they were wet to the skin. But it was a hot day, and the sun was shining brightly. When I asked them, they told me they had come from one of the steamers that had stopped at the levee to render assistance.
I rang the speed bell, which soon reduced our rate one-half. Buck still reported eight and a half. We were within a hundred yards of the mansion-houses, of which I could see four, the lower parts of which were under water. We could see the inmates in the second stories. But the negro cabins were upset and many of them were floating about. It was evident enough that they had been built on lower ground than the residences of the planters. The knoll was covered with shade-trees and shrubs, and the estates were as beautiful as anything I ever looked upon--that is, what I could see of them above the water.
"Eight feet!" shouted the leadsman, with energy.
I rang to stop her, for I could feel a sort of sensation as though the keel of the Sylvania was making a furrow in the field under us. The steamer stopped almost as soon as I rang the bell. But as the water was rising instead of falling, I did not feel at all concerned about her situation. I immediately ordered both boats to be lowered. Ben and Hop went off in one, and Buck and Landy in the other. Not far from the knoll, which could not have been more than three or four feet above the flat over which we had been sailing, I saw the boat the two men from the steamer had been swamped in. I told Buck to tow it to the steamer, and we had it alongside in a few moments. I sent the quarter-boat back to the rescue of the people in the houses and cabins. The river steamer's boat was full of water. We drew her under the davits on the port side, made fast to her, and hauled her out of the water, hoisting the bow end first, so that the water would run out of her. When both ends were abreast of the rail of the vessel, we tipped her over, and entirely freed her of water. I sent Washburn and Dyer Perkins in her to assist the other two boats.