Trust mother, darling; Jerry will take you to Sainte Jacqueline in a boat.' "And after that it is vaguer--the garden, the trench dug under the north wall--and how mother and I, in deadly fear of moccasins, down on all fours, crept after Jerry along the ditch to the water's edge----" His face whitened again; he lay silent for a while, crushing his wasted hands together.
"Celia, they fired on us from the levee.

After that I don't know; I never knew what happened.

But that doctor at Silver Bayou said that I was found a mile below in a boat with the first marks of the plague yellowing my skin.

Celia, they never found my mother's body.

It is not true that she died of fever at Silver Bayou.