brains.

The Bellevite, with the fires banked in the furnaces, was at anchor
off the entrance to Mobile Bay, about two miles east of Sand Island
Lighthouse, and the same distance south of the narrow neck of land on
the western extremity of which Fort Morgan is located. Her commander had
chosen this position for a purpose; for several weeks before, while the
Bellevite was absent on a special mission, a remarkably fast steamer
called the Trafalgar had run the blockade inward.

Captain Passford, Senior, through his agents in England, had some
information in regard to this vessel, which he had sent to Captain
Breaker. Unlike most of the blockade-runners built for this particular
service, she had been constructed in the most substantial manner for an
English millionaire, who had insisted that she should be built as strong
as the best of steel could make her, for he intended to make a voyage
around the world in her.

Unfortunately for the owner of the Trafalgar, who was a lineal
descendant of a titled commander in that great naval battle, he fell
from his horse in a fox chase, and was killed before the steamer was
fully completed. His heir had no taste for the sea, and the steamer was
sold at a price far beyond her cost; and the purchaser had succeeded in
getting her into Mobile Bay with a valuable cargo. She was of about
eight hundred tons burden, and it was said that she could steam twenty
knots an hour. She was believed to be the equal of the Alabama and the
Shenandoah. The Bellevite had been especially notified not to allow the
Trafalgar to escape. She had recently had her bottom cleaned, and her
engine put in perfect order for the service expected of her, for she was
the fastest vessel on the blockade.