One after another, Feliu's luggers fluttered in,--bearing with
them news of the immense calamity. And all the fishermen, in
turn, looked at the child. Not one had ever seen her before.


V.

Ten days later, a lugger full of armed men entered the bayou, and
moored at Viosca's wharf. The visitors were, for the most part,
country gentlemen,--residents of Franklin and neighboring towns,
or planters from the Teche country,--forming one of the numerous
expeditions organized for the purpose of finding the bodies of
relatives or friends lost in the great hurricane, and of
punishing the robbers of the dead. They had searched numberless
nooks of the coast, had given sepulture to many corpses, had
recovered a large amount of jewelry, and--as Feliu afterward
learned,--had summarily tried and executed several of the most
abandoned class of wreckers found with ill-gotten valuables in
their possession, and convicted of having mutilated the drowned.
But they came to Viosca's landing only to obtain information;--he
was too well known and liked to be a subject for suspicion; and,
moreover, he had one good friend in the crowd,--Captain Harris of
New Orleans, a veteran steamboat man and a market contractor, to
whom he had disposed of many a cargo of fresh pompano,
sheep's-head, and Spanish-mackerel ... Harris was the first to
step to land;--some ten of the party followed him. Nearly all
had lost some relative or friend in the great catastrophe;--the
gathering was serious, silent,--almost grim,--which formed about
Feliu.