CHAPTER XVIII.
_Disappointment--Out of the track--The Levi Starbuck--Fresh vegetables -- News--The other side of the case--Kindness repaid--The T.B.

Wales--A family--Volunteers--In man-of-war trim_.
The month of October went out as it came in with severe and blustering weather.

The Alabama was still upwards of two hundred miles from New York, and it seemed as though a change would become necessary in her plans.

Ever since starting upon his adventurous cruise, it had been a favorite scheme with Captain Semmes to make his appearance off this the very chief of the enemy's ports, and, if not strong enough actually to threaten the place itself, at all events to make a few captures within sight of the capital city of the North.

It had been, therefore, a special disappointment to find himself baffled by a continued succession of hostile winds and contrary currents; and even the brilliant success that had thus far attended him in the capture of twenty-one vessels and the destruction of property to very nearly a million of dollars, seemed hardly to compensate for the failure of his pet project.
It was fast becoming evident, however, that the scheme for putting in an appearance off New York must be abandoned, at all events for the present; and on the 30th October the chief engineer was consulted as to the amount of coal remaining in the bunkers.