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POR Lacan ap eS ROR Sa NE ARS aT cen cnet aT 8 aE ea

 

376 Norra Carotina Troops, 1861-65.

at that time one of the most popular Southern sympathizers.
He was a man of fine presence, good business qualifications,
courteous and amiable to a degree. He was trusted by all,
and he acted as banker for nearly every Southerner who
came his way. Halifax was then the center of large Con-
federate interests. Several Confederate war steamers were
there, among them the Chickamauga and the Tallahassee.
It was the rendezvous of blockade-runners who had escaped
from confinement or who had been discharged after several
months detention by the Federals. Keith was attentive
to all of them. When the war ended he suddenly disap-
peared with the cash entrusted to him.

Several years after, there was a great explosion upon the
deck of a German mail steamer which produced a sensation
throughout the entire world. An infernal machine, in-
tended to wreck the Moselle, had prematurely exploded on
the quay and killed and maimed a large number of persons,
among whom was the shipper, under an assumed name. This
man, mortally wounded, was eagerly questioned by the police
as to his diabolical plans and accomplices; the only clue they
obtained from his incoherent ravings was an intimation that
he had been in some way connected with the Confederacy,
and strangely enough he said something about Captain Maf-
fitt and my ship, the Lilian. The authorities took photo-
graphs of him, which were imperfect because of the reclining
position of the dying man. Further investigation after his
death revealed one of the most fiendish plots in commercial
history ; large shipments of bogus goods had been made by the
liner, and heavily insured by this stranger, who had designed
a clock machine intended, it was said, to explode three days
after the sailing of the steamer, and sink her with all on
board. For many months the secret service detectives were
working on this case; at length one of them came to Wil-
mington and questioned me about the man whose picture was
exhibited. Neither I nor any of the pilots at Smithville
could identify him, although his face was strangely familiar
to me. The detective went away, but returned in a few
weeks and asked me if I had known a man named Keith.
“Yes,” I at once replied, “and he was the author of this

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BiockaDE RuNNING. 377

awful crime.” Such proved to be the case. It was the old

story of depraved associates and the downward road to ruin.

Halifax was an important fish market. The codfish trade
stowed the stock of dried fish in the open wharves in stacks of
several tons in weight for convenient shipment in bulk, prin-
cipally to the West Indies. The city market for fresh fish
was perhaps the finest on the continent. Running sea water
through large glass tanks above the street level kept the live
fish in the best condition, from which they were taken as de-
sired with scoop nets. At that time communication with
Bermuda was suspended because of the prevailing epidemic
of yellow fever, which carried off a large proportion of the
population of St. George’s and Hamilton. Being therefore
obliged to remain in Halifax for several weeks, I obtained
comfortable quarters in a private boarding house, with a
friend from Smithville, who was waiting to pilot another
steamer to the Confederacy. He esteemed himself above the
common herd of his profession, and although possessing the
excellent traits of courtesy and kindliness, was pompous and
illiterate in his manner of speech. He was not a pulot, he
said, but a pilate, which pretension, coupled with the gener-
ous girth of his waist-band, suggested the nickname of “Paun-
chions Pilate,” which has stuck in my mind ever since. At
length the brig Eliza Barse was advertised to sail for Ber-
muda and I was directed to take passage in her for St.
George’s and join the new steel steamer Susan Beirne, which
was expected to arrive shortly for blockade-running service. I
accordingly sailed on the brig with several others who decided
to risk the yellow fever in the islands, then reported as dimin-
ishing. Our vessel was old and badly found, as we soon real-
ized to our dismay. The food was coarse and limited, ascer-
taining which just before sailing, one of our party supple-
mented it with a bushel of hard, green pears of the variety
that never ripens, the effect of which is still a painful mem-
ory.

We had searcely left Nova Scotia when we ran into stormy
weather, during which our captain lost his reckoning and af-
ter floundering about in search of more competent navigators,
the sun and stars having been obscured for several days and