When he left me he went there. At
the stores thereabout he bought a new hatchet and axe, an extra water-keg
or two, and a month's provisions. He filled all the kegs, stowed
everything aboard, and by the time the afternoon had half waned was
rippling down the New Canal under mule-tow with a strong lake breeze in
his face.
At the lake (Pontchartrain), as the tow-line was cast off, he hoisted
sail, and, skimming out by lighthouse and breakwater, tripped away toward
Pointe-aux-Herbes and the eastern skyline beyond, he and Sweetheart alone,
his hand clasping hers--the tiller, that is--hour by hour, and the small
waves tiptoeing to kiss her southern cheek as she leaned the other away
from the saucy north wind. In time the low land, and then the lighthouse,
sank and vanished behind them; on the left the sun went down in the purple
black swamps of Manchac; the intervening waters turned crimson and bronze
under the fairer changes of the sky, while in front of them Fort Pike
Light began to glimmer through an opal haze, and by and by to draw near.
It passed. From a large inbound schooner gliding by in the twilight, came
in friendly recognition, the drone of a conch-shell, the last happy
salutation Sweetheart was ever to receive.
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