nine o'clock
On the lounge , stretched at full length , a stiffening human shape , a yellow-white , parchment-like face above the black clothing , a bluish , half-opened mouth whose yellow teeth showed savagely , a fallen chin and jaw , covered with the gray stubble of unshaved beard , and two staring , sightless , ghastly eyes fixed and upturned as though in agonized appeal . Stone-dead , -- murdered , doubtless , -- all that was left of the little Frenchman Lascelles . All that day the storm raged in fury ; the levee road was blocked in places by the boughs torn from overhanging trees , and here , there , and everywhere turned into a quagmire by the torrents that could find no adequate egress to the northward swamps . For over a mile above the barracks it looked like one vast canal , and by nine o'clock it was utterly impassable . No cars were running on the dilapidated road to the `` half-way house , '' whatever they might be doing beyond . There was only one means of communication between the garrison and the town , and that , on horseback along the crest of the levee , and people in the second-story windows of the store - and dwelling-houses along the other side of the way , driven aloft by the drenched condition of the ground floor , were surprised to see the number of times some Yankee soldier or other made the dismal trip . Cram , with a party of four , was perhaps the first .