"I'm all right," said Frank. "I've no gun to carry, and I can get along." And he floundered on as fast as the deep, clinging ooze would permit.
"This is what they call the sacred soil!" observed Harris. "Just the thing, I should say, to breed rattle-snakes and rebels."
"I swan to man!" chimed in Tucket's voice from a distance,--for his long legs had given him an advantage in the general race,--"there ain't no shore after ye get to't. It's nothin' but salt ma'sh, all trod to pudd'n' by the fellers that have been in ahead of us. I thought we was to be _landed_; 'stead of that, we're swamped!"
The men pushed on, through marsh and swamp, sometimes in mire and water knee-deep, and now in tall, rank grass up to their eyes; the darkness adding to their dismal prospect.
"By Grimes!" mutters Jack Winch, "I don't think an island of this kind is worth taking. It's jest fit for secesh and niggers, and nobody else."
"We must have the island, because it's a key to the coast," says Frank.
"I wouldn't talk war, if I couldn't carry a gun," retorts Jack, made cross by the cold and wet.
"Perhaps before we get through you'll be glad to lend me yours," is Frank's pleasant response, as he hastens forward through grass which waves about his ears or lies trodden and tangled under foot.
"The gunboats have stopped firing," observes Atwater.
In fact, both gunboats and battery were now silent, the former having drawn off for the night.
"There's a good time coming, and near, boys! there's a good time coming, and near!" sings out Tucket, holding his head high as he strides along, for he has caught a sight of fires beyond, and the company are now emerging upon a tract of sandy barrens, thinly covered with pines.
A road runs through the island. The advance of the column has already taken possession of it. Skirmishers have been thrown forward into the woods, and pickets are posted on the flanks.
The troops prepare to bivouac for the night. Fires are kindled, and soon the generous flames blaze up, illumining picturesque groups of men, and casting a wild glare far into the depths of the great, black, silent woods. The trees seem to stand out like startled giants, gazing at the unusual scene; and all above and around the frightened shadows lurk, in ghostly boughs, behind dark trunks, among the deep grasses, and in hollows of the black morass. And the darkness of the night overhangs the army like a vast tent, sombrely flickering.