Oleander raised his voice to address the entire crew.

“What the enthusiastic young man says is indeed true in its essence, lads! We’ve no bloody idea what breed of foulness is waiting for us in that lightless pit. I don’t know your feelings. Perhaps, when you see a yawning, black portal to the abyss, your first impulse is to pop in and have a look. Plant a flag in that patch of darkness.

“Or, it could be that you’re a man of sense and reason, and you’re ready to brick the thing right back up and make a one-eighty for any place that has a tap.”

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For several nights, the backwoods dwellers had lived in growing fear of strange lights and stranger noises issuing from far within the treacherous swamp.

There were many able fishermen among the people of the village, but they dared not penetrate the depths of that ageless bayou… Each admitted without shame or reservation that he lacked the courage to strike out into as grim a locale in the dead of night, and with the source of such ominous phenomena as the goal. Despite their misgivings, the men resolved to look about their fellows’ safety while leaving the cause undisturbed. “Let the devil do his work,” they said.

It’s an illusion!

“The officers and men of the Huntsville company wore fine, new uniforms, whereas the soldiers who had long been on the battlefields were dressed in faded, worn uniforms. On the sleeves, collars and coattails of the new calvary troop were bits of brilliant yellow cloth. As the company rode past Company A, Will Arnett cried out in greeting ‘Yellowhammer, Yellowhammer, flicker, flicker!’”