flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above highest
water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldsonville
trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes strove to
burst their boundaries. Far-off river steamers tugged wildly at
their cables,--shivering like tethered creatures that hear by
night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were
hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to
fragments.

And over roaring Kaimbuck Pass,--over the agony of Caillou
Bay,--the billowing tide rushed unresisted from the
Gulf,--tearing and swallowing the land in its course,--ploughing
out deep-sea channels where sleek herds had been grazing but a
few hours before,--rending islands in twain,--and ever bearing
with it, through the night, enormous vortex of wreck and vast wan
drift of corpses ...

But the Star remained. And Captain Abraham Smith, with a long,
good rope about his waist, dashed again and again into that awful
surging to snatch victims from death,--clutching at passing
hands, heads, garments, in the cataract-sweep of the
seas,--saving, aiding, cheering, though blinded by spray and
battered by drifting wreck, until his strength failed in the
unequal struggle at last, and his men drew him aboard senseless,
with some beautiful half-drowned girl safe in his arms. But
well-nigh twoscore souls had been rescued by him; and the Star
stayed on through it all.

Long years after, the weed-grown ribs of her graceful skeleton
could still be seen, curving up from the sand-dunes of Last