"What did the captain say when he paid you off B+"

"He didn't say he was gallied," replied the sailor, with a knowing look, "but I'll bet he is. The booming of that war ship's guns was too much for his nerves, and he's going to quit pirating and go to blockade running. I don't see but that one is about as dangerous as the other." One by one the members of the crew were sent into the cabin, and as fast as they received their money and their discharges they bundled up their clothes and bedding and went ashore. At last there were only six foremast hands left, including Marcy Gray, and these were summoned into the cabin in a body to listen to what Captain Beardsley had to propose to them. He began with the statement that privateering was played out along that coast, because numerous cruisers were making it their business to watch the inlets and warn passing vessels to look out for themselves. It was no use trying to catch big ships that would not let him come within range, and so he had decided to put his howitzers ashore, tear out the berths and gun decks fore and aft, and turn the Osprey into a freighter. He would change her name, too, give her another coat of paint, and take the figures off her sails, so that she could not be recognized from the description the Hollins's men would give of her when they went North.

"I have kept you men because you are the best in the crew," said Beardsley in conclusion, "and of course I want none but good men and true aboard of me; but you needn't stay if you don't want to. I want you to understand that blockade running is a dangerous business, and that we may be captured as others have been; but if you will stand by me, I'll give you five hundred dollars apiece for the run—one hundred to spend in Nassau, and the balance when you help me bring the schooner safe back to Newbern. What do you say?"

The men had evidently been expecting something of this sort, for without a moment's hesitation Tierney, speaking for his companions, replied that the captain's liberal offer was accepted, and they would do all that men could do to make the Osprey's voyages profitable. Marcy said nothing, for Beardsley had already given him to understand that he was to be one of the blockade-runner's crew. He was the only native American among the foremast hands, and the only one who could sign his name to the shipping articles, the others being obliged to make their marks. When this had been done the men returned to the deck, and the agent went ashore to make arrangements for landing the guns, to hunt up a gang of ship carpenters, and find a cotton-factor who was willing to take his chances on making or losing a fortune. He worked to such good purpose that in less than an hour two parties of men were busy on the schooner—one with the howitzers and the other with the bunks below—and a broker was making a contract with Beardsley for taking out a cargo of cotton. When the broker had gone ashore Beardsley beckoned Marcy to follow him into the cabin.

"The schooner owes you seventeen hundred dollars and better," said he, as he closed the sliding door and pointed to a chair. "It's in the bank ashore, and you can have it whenever you want it. Would you like to take out a venture?"

It was right on the point of Marcy's tongue to reply that he would be glad to do it; but he checked himself in time, for the thought occurred to him that perhaps this was another attempt on the part of Captain Beardsley to find out something about the state of his mother's finances. So he looked down at the carpet and said nothing.

"There's money in it," continued Beardsley. "Suppose you take out two bales of cotton, sell it in Nassau for three times what it was worth a few months ago, and invest the proceeds in quinine; why, you'll make five hundred percent. Of course I can't grant all the hands the same privilege, so I will make the bargain for you through my agent, and Tierney and the rest needn't know a thing about. What do you say?"

"I don't think I had better risk it," answered Marcy.

"What for?" asked Beardsley.

"Well, the money I've got I'm sure of, am I not?"

"Course you are. Didn't I say you could have it any minute you had a mind to call for it?"

"You did; but suppose I should put it into cotton, as you suggest, and the Osprey should fall into the hands of one of those war ships outside. There'd be all my money gone to the dogs, or, what amounts to the same thing, into the hands of the Yankees. I may want to use that money before the war is over."

"But didn't you hear the agent say that we ain't going to have any war? We've licked 'em before they could take their coats off."

"But perhaps they'll not stay whipped. My teachers at the academy were pretty well posted, and I heard some of them say that a war is surely coming, and in the end the Southern States will wish they had never seceded."

"Well, them teachers of yourn was the biggest fules I ever heard tell of," exclaimed Beardsley, settling back in his chair and slamming a paper-weight down upon the table. "Why, don't I tell you that we've got 'em licked already? More'n that, I don't mean to fall into the hands of them cruisers outside. I tell you that you'll miss it if you don't take out a venture. And as for your mother needing them seventeen hundred dollars to buy grub and the like, you can't pull the wool over my eyes in no such way as that. She's got money by the bushel, and I know it to be a fact."

"Then you know more than I do," replied Marcy, his eyes never dropping for an instant under the searching gaze the captain fixed upon him. "Now, I would like to ask you one question: You have money enough of your own to load this vessel, have you not?"

"Why, of course I—that's neither here nor there," replied Beardsley, who was not sharp enough to keep out of the trap that Marcy had placed for him. "What of it?"

"I know it to be a fact that you could load the schooner with cotton purchased with your own money if you felt like it," answered the young pilot, "but you don't mean to do it. You would rather carry cotton belonging to somebody else, and that is all the proof I want that you are afraid of the Yankees. If you want to do the fair thing by me, why do you advise me to put my money into a venture, when you are afraid to put in a dollar for yourself?"

"Why, man alive," Beardsley almost shouted, "don't I risk my schooner? Every nigger I've got was paid for with money she made for me by carrying cigars and such like between Havana and Baltimore."

"That's what I thought," said Marcy, to himself. "And you didn't pay a cent of duty on those cigars, either."

"I do my share by risking my schooner," continued the captain. "But I want somebody to make something besides myself, and if you don't want to risk your money, I reckon I'll give the mates a chance. That's all."

"What in the name of sense did I go and speak to him about them cigars for?" he added, mentally, as the pilot ascended the ladder that led to the deck. "I think myself that there's a war coming, and if we get licked I must either make a fast friend of that boy or get rid of him; for if he tells on me I'll get into trouble sure."

It looked now as though Marcy might some day have it in his power to make things very unpleasant for Captain Beardsley.



CHAPTER V.

A CAT WITHOUT CLAWS.

"I really believe I've got a hold on the old rascal at last," said Marcy to himself, as he leaned against the rail and watched the men, who, under direction of the mates, were hard at work getting the howitzers ashore. "From this time on he had better be careful how he treats my mother, for he may fall into the hands of the Yankees some day; and if that ever happens, I will take pains to see that he doesn't get back to Nashville in a hurry. I'll go any lengths to get a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, telling him just who and what Beardsley is, and then perhaps he will stand a chance of being tried for something besides piracy and blockade-running."

Marcy's first care was to write to his mother. While omitting no item of news, he took pains to word the letter so cautiously that it could not be used against him in case some of his secret enemies in and around Nashville, the postmaster and Colonel Shelby, for instance, took it into their heads to open and read it instead of sending it to its address. They had showed him that they were quite mean enough to do it. Then he went ashore to mail the letter and take notes, and was not long in making up his mind that he was not the only one who thought there was going to be a war. Although the Newbern people were very jubilant over the great victory at Bull Run, they did not act as though they thought that that was the last battle they would have to fight before their independence would be acknowledged, for Marcy saw infantry companies marching and drilling in almost every street through which he passed, and every other man and boy he met was dressed in uniform. As he drew near to the post-office he ran against a couple of young soldiers about his own age, or, to be more exact, they ran against him; for they were coming along with their arms locked, talking so loudly that they could have been heard on the opposite side of the street, and when the Osprey's pilot turned out to let them pass, they tried to crowd him off into the gutter. But Marcy, beside being a sturdy fellow, knew how to stand up for his rights. He braced his foot firmly against the curbstone and met the shock of the collision so vigorously that those who would have sent him headlong into the street were sent backward themselves, and came very near going head first down the stairs that led into a basement restaurant.

"Don't you think I ought to have a little of this sidewalk?" he asked good-naturedly, as the two straightened up and faced him with clenched hands and flashing eyes.

"Then put on a uniform and you can have as much of it as you want," said one, in reply.

"How long have you had those good clothes of yours?" inquired Marcy. "Were they in the fight at Bull Run?"

"Of course not. We only enlisted a week ago, but we show our good will and you don't."

"Then you have never smelled powder or heard the noise of the enemy's guns?"

"It isn't likely, for there's been no fighting around here," said the same speaker, who began to wonder if he and his companions hadn't made a mistake.

"Then go and get some experience before you take it upon yourselves to shove a veteran into the ditch," said Marcy loftily. "I've been in the service ever since President Davis issued his call for privateers. You've heard of the Osprey, haven't you? Well, I belong to her."

"Is that so?" exclaimed the other, extending his hand, which the pilot was prompt to accept. "I am sorry we insulted you and beg your pardon for it. But you ought to wear something to show who you are, for the folks around here don't think much of citizens unless they have declared their intention of enlisting as soon as they can get their affairs in shape."

"I knew why you bumped up against me, and that was the reason I didn't get mad at it," answered Marcy. "You don't seem to have much to do; and if you will walk up to the post-office with me, I'll show you over the Osprey, if you would like to take a look at her. But we'll have to be in a hurry if we want to see her with the guns aboard, for she is being changed into a blockade-runner."

"Ah! That's the money-making business," said one of the recruits with enthusiasm. "I wish I knew something about boats, so that I could go into it myself. What wages do you get?"

"Five hundred dollars for the run to Nassau and back."

The eyes of Marcy's new friends grew to twice their usual size. They looked hard at him to see if he was really in earnest, and then whistled in concert.

"It's worth it," continued Marcy, "and I don't believe you could get men to go into it for less. From the time we leave the protection of the forts at Hatteras to the time we get back, we shall be in constant fear of capture. We know something of the dangers of the business, for we had two narrow escapes during our last cruise."

Of course the recruits wanted to know all about it, and as they faced around and walked with him, Marcy gave them a short history of what the schooner had done since she went into commission. When he told how neatly that Yankee brig had slipped through Captain Beardsley's fingers, his companions looked at him in surprise.

"What a pity," said one. "And yet you talk as if you were glad of it."

"I talk as if it was a brave and skilful act, and so it was," answered Marcy. "You would say the same if you had been there and seen it done."

"No, I wouldn't. The Yankees are not brave and skilful, and they can't do anything to make me think they are. How will they feel when they see our President sitting in the White House, dictating terms of peace to them? I hope our company will be there to witness the ceremony."

This was a point Marcy did not care to discuss with the two recruits, for fear he might say something to arouse in their minds a suspicion that he was not intensely loyal to the Confederacy, even if he did sail under its flag; so he inquired if there were anything else but drilling and marching going on in Newbern.

"Not much else in the city," replied one of the young soldiers. "But there's a heap going on about five miles below. There's a corps of engineers down there laying out a system of fortifications which are to be a mile long. It will take eight or nine thousand men to garrison them, and they will be defended by thirty-one guns."

"But I don't see any sense in it," said the other, who seemed to think he had learned considerable of the art of war since he put on his gray jacket. "A Yankee army will never come so far south as Newbern, and their gunboats can't get past the forts at Hatteras."

But, all the same, the Confederate authorities thought the works ought to be pushed to completion, and so they were; but they did not amount to much, for Burnside's troops captured them after a four hours' fight, with the loss of only ninety-one men killed, the garrison retreating to Newbern and taking the cars for Goldsborough. When Marcy heard of it a few months later, he wondered if his new acquaintances were in the fight, and if they still held to the opinion that the Yankees were not brave.

After leaving the post-office they spent an hour on board the Osprey and parted at last well pleased with the result of their meeting, and fully satisfied in their own minds that the Yankees had been so badly whipped at Bull Run that they would never dare face the Confederate soldiers again. At least the two recruits were satisfied of it; but Marcy thought he knew better.

On the morning of the next day but one, a tug came alongside and towed the schooner up to a warehouse, where there was a load of cotton waiting for her; and for want of something better to do, Marcy hunted up a cotton-hook and assisted in rolling the heavy bales on board. The little vessel was so changed in appearance that a landsman would hardly have recognized her. The treacherous figure "9," which Beardsley had caused to be painted on her sails, in the hope that merchant vessels would take her for a harmless pilot-boat, was not to be seen; all the black paint about her, from the heel of her bowsprit to the crosstrees, had given place to a bluish-white; and on both sides of her bow and over her cabin door the name Hattie appeared in large gilt letters.

"Now, when them Hollins men get home and try to give the war ships a description of the privateer that captured them, they will be mighty apt to shoot wide of the mark, won't they?" said Captain Beardsley, who was much pleased with the work the painters had done under his instructions. "There ain't the first thing aboard of us to show that we used to be engaged in the privateering business. Oh, I'm a sharp one, and it takes something besides a Yankee to get the start of me."

Beardsley was so impatient to get to sea, and so very anxious to handle the fortune he was sure he was going to make by his first attempt at blockade running, that he employed all the men that could be worked to advantage, and took on board every bale he could possibly find room for. The deck load was so large that it threatened to interfere with the handling of the sails! and when a tug pulled the schooner's head around till it pointed down the river, she set so low in the water that she could not show her usual speed, even with the tide in her favor, and Tierney said in Marcy's hearing that he believed he could hoist a sail in a washing-tub and reach Nassau before the schooner could leave the sand dunes of Hatteras out of sight. But the captain did not seem to think he had made any mistake in loading his vessel, although he did show some anxiety for her safety; for when she reached Crooked Inlet he walked aft and took charge of the wheel himself, and without saying one word to the young fellow whom he called his pilot, until he saw the latter looking at him as if he wanted to know what Beardsley meant by such work.

"There, now," said the captain, by way of explanation, "I thought you was below; I did for a fact. And so I said to myself that I wouldn't bother you, but would try and take her through without your help, just to see if I could do it, you know. Supposing you was the only one aboard who knew the channel, and something should happen to you, and I should want to come through here in a hurry to get out of the way of a war ship that was close in my wake; wouldn't I be in a pretty fix? Now stand by, so't you can give me a word in case I don't hold her just right."

"You old hypocrite," thought Marcy. "If that was the first lie you ever told it would choke you. So he thinks something is going to happen to me, does he? Now what does he mean by that?"

Captain Beardsley had done nothing more than Marcy expected him to do, but he did not have a word of fault to find with it, as a regular pilot would have done when he saw his business taken out of his hands in so unceremonious a fashion. If the skipper was willing to pay him five hundred dollars for doing nothing, the boy didn't think he ought to complain. He took his stand close by the captain's side, but he did not touch the wheel, nor did he so much as look at the black and red buoys that marked the channel. He was turning these words over in his mind: "Suppose something should happen to you!" Was he to understand that Beardsley had made up his mind to get rid of him in some way?

"If that is what he wants, why didn't he pay me off while we were in Newbern?" was the question Marcy asked himself. "But for some reason or other it doesn't suit him to have me at home with mother; and that makes me think that there's going to be an attempt made to steal the money she has hidden in the cellar wall. Oh, how I wish Jack was at home."

When the schooner was clear of the Inlet, Beardsley gave the boy a wink as if to say, "I did take her through, didn't I?" held a short consultation with the mates, during which the course was determined upon, then mounted to the cross trees with his glass in his hand; and after sweeping it around the horizon, gave the cheering information to those below that there was nothing in sight. But there was something in sight a few hours later—something that put Beardsley in such a rage that he did not get over it for a day or two. It was a schooner a little larger than his own, and she was standing directly across the Hattie's bows. She did not show any disposition to "dodge" as the brig had done, but held straight on her course, and this made Captain Beardsley suspect that there might be a cruiser following in her wake to see that she did not get into trouble. But if there was, his glass failed to reveal the fact, and this suggested an idea to him. When the stranger's topsails could be seen from the Hattie's deck he shouted down to his mate:

"Say, Morgan, I'll tell you what's the matter with that fellow. He don't know that there's such things as privateers afloat, and he ain't seen nary cruiser to warn him. That's why he don't sheer off."

"I reckon you're right, cap'n," replied the mate. "It's plain that he ain't afraid of us."

"Well, if I am right," continued Beardsley, "it proves that the war ships off Hatteras have went off somewheres, and that the coast below is all clear; don't you think so? What do you say if we make a straight run for our port? We'll save more than a week by it."

"I'm agreeable," answered the mate, who, upon receiving a nod from the captain, gave the necessary orders, and in a few minutes the Hattie was close-hauled and running in such a direction that if the two vessels held on their way, they would pass almost within hailing distance of each other. Of course the captain of the stranger must have witnessed this manoeuvre, but he did not seem to be surprised or troubled by it; for he kept straight on and in another hour dashed by within less than a quarter of a mile of Captain Beardsley, who lifted his hat and waved it to a small party of men, her officers probably, who were standing on her quarter deck. In response to the salutation the Stars and Stripes were hoisted at her peak.

"If she had done that three weeks ago wouldn't I have brought that flag down with a jerk?" exclaimed Beardsley angrily. "Did anybody ever hear of such luck? Why didn't she show up when we had them howitzers aboard? They don't know what to make of us, for I can see two fellows with glasses pointed at us all the time. Run up that Yankee flag, Marcy."

The latter was prompt to obey the order, and he was quite willing to do it, since it was not in Beardsley's power to do any harm to the handsome stranger. After being allowed to float for a few minutes the two flags were hauled down and stowed away in their respective chests, and the little vessels parted company without either one knowing who the other was. But there was an angry lot of men on board the Hattie. Beardsley showed that he was one of them by the hard words he used when he came down from aloft and sent a lookout up to take his place, and Tierney, after shaking his fist at the Yankee, shut one eye, glanced along the rail with the other, as he had glanced through the sights of the howitzer he once commanded, and then jerked back his right hand as if he were pulling a lock-string. Marcy Gray was the only one aboard who carried a light heart.

After the schooner's course was changed there was a good deal of suppressed excitement among the crew, for Captain Beardsley was about to take what some of them thought to be a desperate risk. Probably there were no cruisers off Hatteras when that merchant vessel passed, but that was all of fifteen or twenty hours ago, and they had had plenty of time to get back to their stations. So a bright lookout was kept by all hands, and Beardsley or one of the mates went aloft every few minutes to take a peep through the glass. Marcy thought there was good cause for watchfulness and anxiety. In the first place, the Bahama Islands, of which Nassau, in the Island of New Providence, was the principal port, lay off the coast of Florida, and about five hundred miles southeast of Charleston. They must have been at least twice as far from Crooked Inlet, so that Captain Beardsley, by selecting Newbern as his home port, ran twice the risk of falling into the hands of the Federal cruisers that he would if he had decided to run his contraband cargo into Savannah or Charleston.

"It seems to me that the old man ought to have learned wisdom after living for so many years in defiance of the law," thought Marcy, when it came his turn to go aloft and relieve the lookout. "Of course a smuggler has to take his chances with the revenue cutters he is liable to meet along the coast, as well as with the Custom House authorities, and I should think that constant fear of capture would have made him sly and cautious; but it hasn't."—"Nothing in sight, sir," he said, in answer to an inquiry from the officer who had charge of the deck.

And this was the report that was sent down by every lookout who went aloft during the next four days; and what a time of excitement and suspense that was for Marcy Gray and all the rest of the Hattie's crew. Perhaps there was not so much danger of being run down at night by some heavy vessel as there would have been a few months before, but Marcy's nerves thrilled with apprehension when he stood holding fast to the rail during the lonely mid-watch, and the schooner, with the spray dashing wildly about her bows and everything drawing, was running before a strong wind through darkness so black that her flying-jib-boom could not be seen, and there was no light on board except the one in the binnacle.

"I know it's dangerous and I don't like it any better than you do," Beardsley said to him one night. "But think of the money there is in it, and what a fule you were for not taking out a venture when I gave you the chance. I bought four bales apiece for the mates, and they will pocket the money that you might have had just as well as not."

"But I want to use my seventeen hundred dollars," replied Marcy; and so he did. He still clung to the hope that he might some day have an opportunity to return it to the master of the Hollins, and that was the reason he was unwilling to run the risk of losing it.

"Go and tell that to the marines," said Captain Beardsley impatiently. "They'll believe anything, but I won't. You don't need it; your folks don't, and I know it. Keep a bright lookout for lights, hold a stiff upper lip, and I will take you safely through."

And so he did. Not only were the Federal war ships accommodating enough to keep out of the way, but the elements were in good humor also. The schooner had a fair wind during the whole of her perilous journey, and in due time it wafted her into the port of Nassau. Although Marcy Gray had never been there before, he had heard and read of New Providence as a barren rock, with scarcely soil enough to produce a few pineapples and oranges, and of Nassau as a place of no consequence whatever so far as commerce was concerned. It boasted a small sponge trade, exported some green turtles and conch-shells, and was the home of a few fisherman and wreckers; this was all Marcy thought there was of Nassau, and consequently his surprise was great when he found himself looking out upon the wharves of a thriving, bustling little town. The slave-holders' rebellion, "which brought woe and wretchedness to so many of our States, was the wind that blew prosperity to Nassau." When President Lincoln's proclamation, announcing the blockade of all the Confederate ports was issued, Nassau took on an air of business and importance, and at once became the favorite resort of vessels engaged in contraband trade. There were Northern men there too, and Northern vessels as well; for, to quote from the historian, "The Yankee, in obedience to his instincts of traffic, scented the prey from afar, and went there to turn an honest penny by assisting the Confederates to run the blockade." The supplies which the Confederates had always purchased in the North, and of which they already began to stand in need, were shipped from Europe in neutral vessels; and being consigned to a neutral port (for Nassau belonged to England), they were in no danger of being captured by our war ships during the long voyage across the Atlantic. It was when these supplies were taken from the wharves and placed in the holds of vessels like the Hattie that the trouble began, and men like Captain Beardsley ran all the risk and reaped the lion's share of the profits. Almost the first thing that drew Marcy's attention was the sight of a Union and Confederate flag floating within a few rods of each other.

"What's the meaning of that?" he asked of Beardsley, as soon as he found opportunity to speak to him. "We don't own this town, do we?"

"No; but we've got a Consulate here," was the reply. "I don't know's I understand just what that means, but it's some sort of an officer that our government has sent here to look out for our interests. If a man wants to go from here to our country, he must go to that Consulate and get a pass before any blockade-runner will take him. Now don't you wish you had took my advice and brought out a venture?"

"It's too late to think of that now," answered Marcy. "And your own profits are not safe yet. It must be all of a thousand miles from here to Newbern, and perhaps we'll not have as good luck going as we did coming. I am to have a hundred dollars to spend here, am I not?"

"Course. That's what I promised before you and the rest signed articles. I'll give it to you the minute this cotton is got ashore and paid for. What you going to do with it?"

"I thought I would invest it in medicine."

"Your head's level. You couldn't make bigger money on anything else."

"And as it is my own money and the captain of the Hollins has no interest in it, I shall feel quite at liberty to spend it as I choose," soliloquized Marcy, as the captain turned away to meet the representative of the English house to which his cargo of cotton was consigned. "Besides, I must keep up appearances, or I'll get into trouble."

"Turn to, all hands, and get off the hatches," shouted one of the mates. "Lively now, for the sooner we start back the sooner we'll get there."

Marcy did not know whether or not he was included in this order addressed to "all hands," but as the officer looked hard at him he concluded he was. At any rate he was willing to work, if for no other purpose than to keep him from thinking. Somehow he did not like to have his mind dwell upon the homeward run.



CHAPTER VI.

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.

The gang of 'longshoremen, which was quickly sent on board the Hattie by the Englishman to whom we referred in the last chapter, worked to such good purpose that in just forty-eight hours from the time her lines were made fast to the wharf, the blockade-runner was ready for her return trip. Meanwhile Marcy Gray and the rest of the crew had little to do but roam about the town, spending their money and mingling with the citizens, the most of whom were as good Confederates as could have been found anywhere in the Southern States. Marcy afterward told his mother that if there were any Union people on the island they lived in the American Consulate, from whose roof floated the Stars and Stripes. Marcy was both astonished and shocked to find that nearly every one with whom he conversed believed that the Union was already a thing of the past, and that the rebellious States never could be whipped. One day he spoke to Beardsley about it, while the latter was pacing his quarter-deck smoking his after-dinner cigar.

"If those English sailors I was talking with a little while ago are so very anxious to see the Union destroyed, I don't see why they don't ship under the Confederate flag," said he. "But what has England got against the United States, anyway?"

"Man alive, she's got everything against 'em," replied the captain, in a surprised tone. "Didn't they lick old England twice, and ain't the Yankee flag the only one to which a British army ever surrendered? You're mighty right. She'd be glad to see the old Union busted into a million pieces; but she's too big a coward to come out and help us open and above board, and so she's helping on the sly. I wish the Yankees would do something to madden her, but they're too sharp. They have give up the Herald—the brig I was telling you about that sailed from Wilmington just before you came back from your furlong. She was a Britisher, yon know, and a warship took her prisoner; but the courts allowed that Wilmington wasn't blockaded at all, except on paper, and ordered her to be released. I only wish the Yankees had had the pluck to hold fast to her."

Marcy's thoughts had often reverted to the capture of the brig Herald and to Captain Beardsley's expressed wish that the act might lead to an open rupture between the United States and England, and he was glad to learn that there was to be no trouble on that score. But England could not long keep her meddlesome fingers out of our pie. She did all she dared to aid the Confederacy, and when the war was ended, had the fun of handing over a good many millions of dollars to pay for the American vessels that British built and British armed steamers had destroyed upon the high seas.

"I saw you bring aboard some little bundles a while ago," continued Beardsley. "What was in 'em?"

"One of them contained two woolen dresses I bought for mother, and in the others there was nothing but medicine," said Marcy. "Woolen goods will be worth money by and by."

"Oh, yes; they'll run up a little. Things always do in war times. The money them medicines cost, you will be able to turn over about three times when we get back to Newbern. You'll clear about three hundred dollars, when you might just as well have made five thousand, if you'd took my advice and put in your seventeen hundred, as I wanted you to do."

Marcy made no rely, for he had grown weary of telling the captain that he intended to use that money for another purpose.

During the two days they remained in port two large steamers came in, and on the way out they passed as many more, both of which showed the English colors when Marcy, in obedience to Beardsley's orders, ran the Confederate emblem up to the Hattie's peak.

"Everything that's aboard them ships is meant for us," said Captain Beardsley. "I know it, because there never was no such steamers sailing into this port before the war. Them fellows over the water are sending in goods faster'n we can take 'em out. Go aloft, Marcy, and holler the minute you see anything that looks like a sail or a smoke."

When the pilot had been discharged and the schooner filled away for home, her crew settled down to business again, and every man became alert and watchful. Those dreadful night runs on the way down Marcy always thought of with a shiver, and now he had to go through with them again; and one would surely have ended his career as a blockade-runner, for a while at least, had it not been for the credulity or stupidity of a Union naval captain. This particular night, for a wonder, was clear; the stars shone brightly, and Marcy Gray, who sat on the cross trees with the night-glass in his hand, had been instructed to use extra vigilance. There was a heavy ground swell on, showing that there had recently been a blow somewhere, and the schooner had just breeze enough to give her steerage way, with nothing to spare. Marcy was thinking of home, and wondering how much longer it would be necessary for him to lead this double life, when he saw something that called him back to earth again. He took a short look at it through his glass, and then said, in tones just loud enough to reach the ears of those below:

"On deck, there."

"Ay, ay!" came the answer. "What's to do?"

"Lights straight ahead, sir."

"Throw a tarpaulin over that binnacle," commanded Beardsley; and a moment later Marcy saw him coming up. He gave the glass into his hands and moved aside so that the captain could find a place to stand on the crosstrees. Either the latter's eyes were sharper than Marcy's, or else he took time to make a more critical examination of the approaching vessel, for presently he hailed the deck in low but excited tones.

"I'm afraid we're in for it, Morgan," said he. "I do for a fact. Tumble up here and see what you think of her. I can make out that she is a heavy steamer," he added, as Marcy moved to the other side of the mast, and the mate came up and stood beside the captain, "and if she can't make us out, too, every soul aboard of her must be blind. Our white canvas must show a long ways in this bright starlight. What is she?"

"I give it up," replied the mate.

"She is coming straight for us, ain't she?"

"Looks like it. Suppose you change the course a few points and then we can tell for a certainty."

Captain Beardsley thought this a suggestion worth acting upon. He sent down the necessary orders to the second mate, who had been left in charge of the deck, and in a few minutes the schooner was standing off on the other tack, and rolling fearfully as she took the ground swell almost broadside on. Then there came an interval of anxiety and suspense, during which Marcy Gray strained his eyes until he saw a dozen lights dancing before them instead of two, as there ought to have been, and at last Captain Beardsley's worst fears were confirmed. The relative position of the red and green lights ahead slowly changed until they were almost in line with each other, and Marcy was sailor enough to know what that meant. The steamer had caught sight of the Hattie, was keeping watch of her, and had altered her course to intercept her. Marcy began to tremble.

"I know how a prison looks when viewed from the outside," he said to himself. "And unless something turns up in our favor, it will not be many days before I shall know how one looks on the inside."

It was plain that his two companions were troubled by the same gloomy thoughts, for he heard Beardsley say, in a husky voice:

"She ain't holding a course for nowhere, neither for the Indies nor the Cape; she shifted her wheel when we did, and that proves that she's a Yankee cruiser and nothing else. See any signs of a freshening anywhere?"

"Nary freshening," replied the mate, with a hasty glance around the horizon. "There ain't a cloud as big as your fist in sight."

Of course Beardsley used some heavy words—he always did when things did not go to suit him—and then he said, as if he were almost on the point of crying with vexation:

"It's too bad for them cowardly Yankees to come pirating around here just at this time when we've got a big fortune in our hands. Them goods we've got below is worth a cool hundred thousand dollars in Newbern, if they're worth anything, and my commission will be somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five per cent.; dog-gone it all. Can't we do nothing to give her the slip? You ain't fitten to be a mate if you can't give a word of advice in a case like this."

"And if I wanted to be sassy I might say that you ain't fit to command a ship if you can't get her out of trouble when you get her into it. There can't no advice be given that I can see, unless it be to chuck the cargo over the side. I reckon that would be my way if I was master of the Hattie.

"But what good would that do?" exclaimed Beardsley. "Where are my dockyments to prove that I am an honest trader? And even if I had some, and the cargo was safe out of the hold and sunk to the bottom, I couldn't say that I am in ballast, because I ain't got a pound of any sort of ballast to show. Oh, I tell you we're gone coons, Morgan. Do the Yankees put striped clothes on their prisoners when they shove 'em into jail, I wonder?"

The mate, who had come to the wise conclusion that the only thing he could do was to make the best of the situation, did not answer the captain's last question. All he said was:

"If you dump the cargo overboard the Yankees won't get it!"

"But they'll get my schooner, won't they?" Beardsley almost shouted. "And do you reckon that I'm going to give them Newbern fellows the satisfaction of knowing that I saved their goods by sending them to the bottom? Not by a great sight. If that cruiser gets my property she'll get their'n, too. I don't reckon we'd have time to clear the hold anyway."

Marcy Gray had thought so all along. The lights were coming up at a hand gallop, and already they were much nearer than they seemed to be, for the shape of the steamer could be made out by the unaided eye. When Beardsley ceased speaking, the sound of a gong was clearly heard, and a minute later the steamer blew her whistle.

"What did I tell you, Morgan?" whined the captain. "She's slowing up, and that whistle means for us to show lights. The next thing we shall see will be a small boat coming off. I hope the swell'll turn it upside down and drown every mother's son of her crew that—On deck, there," he shouted, in great consternation. "Get out lights, and be quick about it. She'll be on top of us directly."

"She can see us as well without lights as she can with 'em," growled the mate, as he backed down slowly from the crosstrees. "I don't care if she cuts us down. I'd about as soon go to the bottom as to be shut up in a Yankee prison."

Marcy Gray was almost as badly frightened as Beardsley seemed to be. The steamer was dangerously near, and her behavior and the schooner's proved the truth of what he had read somewhere, that "two vessels on the ocean seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon each other, so often do collisions occur when it looks as though there might be room for all the navies of the world to pass in review." So it was now. The two vessels drifted toward each other, broadside on, and the breeze was so light that the Hattie was almost helpless; but the stranger was well handled; her huge paddle wheels, which up to this moment had hung motionless in the water, began to turn backward, and presently Marcy let go his desperate clutch upon the stay to which he was clinging, and drew a long breath of relief. Whatever else the cruiser might do to the Hattie she did not mean to send her to the bottom.

"Schooner ahoy!" came the hail.

"On board the steamer," answered Captain Beardsley, who had been allowed a little leisure in which to recover his wits and courage.

"What schooner is that?"

"The Hattie of New York," shouted Beardsley. "Homeward bound from Havana with a cargo of sugar. Who are you?"

"The United States supply steamer Adelaide. What are you doing a hundred miles eastward of your course, and showing no lights?" asked the voice; and Marcy fully expected that the next words would be, "I'll send a boat aboard of you."

"I'm afraid of privateers," was Beardsley's response. "I heered there was some afloat, and I can't afford to fall in with any of 'em, kase everything I've got on 'arth is this schooner. If I lose her I'm teetotally ruined."

"Well, then, why don't you hold in toward Hatteras, where you will be safe? There's a big fleet in there, and in a few days there'll be more."

"You don't tell me! Much obleeged for the information! I will put that way as fast as this breeze will take me. Seen anything suspicious? No? Then good-by and farewell."

Beardsley shouted out some orders, the schooner filled away so as to pass under the steamer's stern, and to Marcy's unbounded astonishment she was permitted to go in peace. The stranger's gong sounded again, and she also went on her way. There was scarcely a word spoken above a whisper until her lights had disappeared; then the schooner's own lanterns were hauled down, her head was turned to the point of the compass toward which it had been directed when the steamer was first discovered, and Captain Beardsley was himself again.

"By gum!" said he, striding up and down the deck, pausing now and then to go through the undignified performance of shipping his mates on the back. "By gum, I done it, didn't I! What sort of a Yankee do you reckon I'd make, Marcy? I talked just like one—through the nose, you know. Pretty good acting; don't you think so?"

"It was good enough to save the schooner," replied Marcy.

"And that was what I meant to do if I could. I wouldn't have give a dollar for my chances of getting shet of that steamer till she began to back away to keep from running us down, and then something told me that I'd be all right if I put a bold face on the matter. And that's what I done. Oh, I'm a sharp one, and it takes a better man than a Yankee to get ahead of me. I was really much obliged to him for telling me of that blockading fleet at Hatteras, for now I'll know better than to go nigh that place. Hold the old course, Morgan, and that will take us out of the way of coasters and cruisers, both. I'll go below and turn in for a short nap."

"If I should follow this business until I am gray-headed I don't think I should ever again have so narrow an escape," said Marcy to himself, as he too went below to take a little needed rest. "Why, it seems like a dream; and somehow I can hardly bring myself to believe it really happened. If the Yankees talk the way Captain Beardsley did, all I can say for them is that they are queer folks."

It seemed as though the schooner's crew could never get through talking about their short interview with the supply steamer, for every one of them had given up all hope of escape, and looked for nothing else but to see an armed boat put off to test the truth of Captain Beardsley's statements regarding the Hattie and her cargo. The mate, Morgan, was completely bewildered. He could not understand how a man who had showed a disposition to cry when he saw his vessel in danger, could be so cool and even impudent when the critical moment came.

In due time all thoughts of the enemy they had left astern gave way to speculations concerning those they might find before them. The latitude of Hatteras Inlet was thought to be particularly dangerous; but that was passed in the night and Marcy breathed easily again, until Beardsley began to take a slant in toward the shore, and then there was another season of suspense. But the day drew to a close without bringing any suspicious smoke or sail to add to their fears, and when darkness came Crooked Inlet was not more than thirty miles away. If the strong and favoring wind that then filled the schooner's sails held out, her keel would be plowing the waters of the Sound by midnight or a little later, and Captain Beardsley's commission would be safe. At least that was what the latter told Marcy; and, while he talked, he jingled some keys in his pocket with as much apparent satisfaction as though they were the dollars he hoped to put there in a few days more. But the old saying that there is many a slip came very near holding true in Beardsley's case. The latter was so certain that he had left all danger behind him, and that he had nothing more to do but sail in at his leisure and land his cargo when he got ready, that he did not think it worth while to man the crosstrees after nightfall; consequently there was no watchful lookout to warn him of the suspicious looking object that moved slowly out of the darkness a mile or so ahead, and waited for him to come up. About eleven o'clock Marcy Gray strolled forward and climbed out upon the bowsprit to see if he could discover any signs of the land, which, according to his calculations, ought not to be far distant.

"I might as well be out here as anywhere else," he thought, pulling out the night-glass, which he had taken the precaution to bring with him. "Of course the skipper will run her through without any aid from me, as he did before, and so—what in the world is that? Looks like a smooth round rock; but I know it isn't, for there's nothing of that sort about this Inlet."

Marcy took another look through the glass, then backed quickly but noiselessly down from his perch and ran aft to the quarter-deck. The captain was standing there joking with his mates, and congratulating them and himself on the safe and profitable run the Hattie had made; and as Marcy came up he threw back his head and gave utterance to a hoarse laugh, which, in the stillness of the night, could have been heard half a mile away.

"Captain! Captain!" exclaimed Marcy, in great excitement, "for goodness' sake don't do that again! Keep still! There's a ship's long boat filled with men right ahead of us."

It seemed to Marcy that Beardsley wilted visibly when this astounding piece of news was imparted to him. His hearty laugh was broken short off in the middle, so to speak, and when turned so that the light from the binnacle shone upon his face, Marcy saw that it was as white as a sheet.

"No!" he managed to gasp.

"Why, boy, you're scared to death," said one of the mates, rather contemptuously. "Where's the ship for the long boat to come from?"

"I don't know anything about that," answered Marcy hurriedly. "I only tell you what I saw with my own eyes. Here's the glass. Captain. Go for'ard and take a look for yourself."

The captain snatched the glass with almost frantic haste and ran toward the bow, followed by the mates and all the rest of the crew, with the exception of the man at the wheel. With trembling hands Beardsley raised the binoculars, but almost immediately took them down again to say, in frightened tones:

"For the first time in my life I have missed my reckoning. We're lost, and the Yankee fleet may be within less than a mile of us. Take a look, Morgan. I never saw that rock before."

"But I tell you it isn't a rock," protested Marcy. "It is a boat, and she's lying head on so that she won't show as plainly as she would if she lay broadside to us. Do you see those long black streaks on each side? Those are oars, and they were in motion when I first saw them."

The mate was so long in making his observations that Marcy grew impatient, and wondered at his stupidity. He could see without the aid of a glass that it was a boat and nothing else; and more than that, the schooner had by this time drawn so near her that he could make out two suspicious objects in her bow—one he was sure was a howitzer, and the other looked very like the upright, motionless figure of a blue-jacket, awaiting the order from the officer in command to pull the lock-string. An instant later a second figure arose, as if from the stern-sheets, and the command came clear and distinct:

"Heave to, or we'll blow you out of the water!"

"Now I hope you are satisfied!" exclaimed Marcy.

He expected to see Beardsley wilt again; but he did nothing of the sort. It required an emergency to bring out what there was in him, and when he saw that he must act, he did it without an instant's hesitation.

"Lay aft, all hands!" was the order he gave. "Marcy, stand by to watch the buoys in the Inlet. Morgan, go to the wheel and hold her just as she is. Don't luff so much as a hair's breadth. We'll run them Yankees down. It's our only chance."

"And a very slim one it is," thought Marcy, as he took the glass from the mate's hand and directed it toward the point where he thought the entrance of the Inlet ought to be. "The cruiser to which this boat belongs can't be far away, and she will come up the minute she hears the roar of the howitzer."

"Heave to, or we'll sink you!" came the order, in louder and more emphatic tones.

"Starboard a spoke or two. Steady at that," said Beardsley, turning about and addressing the man who had been stationed in the waist to pass his commands. "Ten to one they'll miss us, but all the same I wish I knew how heavy them guns of their'n is."

"They have but one," replied Marcy, wondering at the captain's coolness. "Can't you see it there in the bow?"

"Well, if it's a twenty-four pounder, like them old ones of our'n, and they hit us at the water-line, they'll tear a hole in us as big as a barn door."

All this while the schooner had been bearing swiftly down upon the launch, and when the officer in command of her began to see through Beardsley's little plan, he at once proceeded to set in motion one of his own that was calculated to defeat it. His howitzer was loaded with a five-second shrapnel, and this he fired at the schooner at a point-blank range of less than a hundred yards. He couldn't miss entirely at that short distance, but the missile flew too high to hull the blockade-runner. It struck the flying jib-boom, breaking it short off and rendering that sail useless, glanced and splintered the rail close by the spot where the captain and his pilot were standing, went shrieking off over the water, and finally exploding an eighth of a mile astern. The skipper and Marcy were both prostrated by a splinter six feet long and four inches thick that was torn from the rail; but they scrambled to their feet again almost as soon as they touched the deck, and when they looked ahead, fully expecting to find the launch under the schooner's fore-foot and on the point of being run down, they saw an astonishing as well as a most discouraging sight. The boat was farther away than she was before, and her whole length could be seen now, for not only was she broadside on, but the darkness above and around her, which had hitherto rendered her shape and size somewhat indistinct, was lighted up by a bright glare that shot up from somewhere amidships, and the sound of escaping steam could be plainly heard.



"Oh, my shoulder! Dog-gone it all, my shoulder!" cried Beardsley, placing the instep of his left foot behind his right knee and hopping about as if it were the lower portion of his anatomy that had been injured instead of the upper. "She's got a steam ingine aboard of her, and them oars of her'n was only meant for snooping up and down the coast quiet and still' so't nobody couldn't hear 'em. We're gone this time, Morgan; and I tell you that for a fact!"

The moment Marcy Gray recovered his feet he made an effort to pick up the glass that had fallen from his grasp, but to his surprise, his left hand refused to obey his will. When he made a second attempt, he found that he could not move his hand at all unless he raised his arm at the shoulder. He was not conscious of much pain, although he afterward said that his arm felt a good deal as it did when Dick Graham accidentally hit his biceps with a swiftly pitched ball. But his right hand was all right, and with it he snatched up the glass and levied it at the Inlet, which to his great delight he could plainly see straight ahead.

"Mind what you are about, Captain," said he, as soon as he could induce the man to stand still and listen to him. "That first buoy is a black one, and you want to leave it to port. If you keep on as you are holding now you will leave it to starboard, and that will run you hard and fast aground."

"Don't make much odds which way we go," whined Beardsley, holding fast to his elbow with one hand and to his shoulder with the other. "Just look what them Yankees is a doing!"

The captain became utterly disheartened when he saw that his plan for sinking the launch and making good his escape into the Inlet was going to end in failure, and Marcy did not blame him for it. The officer in command of the small boat, whoever he might be, was a determined and active fellow; his crew were picked men; his little craft was a "trotter," and he knew how to handle both of them. He had been sent out by one of the blockading squadron to patrol the coast and watch for just such vessels as the Hattie was, and although he had steam up all the while, he used his twenty-four muffled oars, twelve on a side, as his motive power; and this enabled him to slip along the coast without making the least sound to betray his presence. As luck would have it, he had not discovered Crooked Inlet. If he had, he would have lifted the buoys, and it might have led to extra watchfulness on the part of the blockading fleet. But he had discovered the Hattie and his actions proved that he did not mean to let her escape if he could help it.



CHAPTER VII.

THE MATE'S LUCKY SHOT.

"Just look what them Yankees is a doing now," repeated Captain Beardsley; and when Marcy turned his eyes from the warning buoy to the launch, he saw that the latter was scuttling rapidly out of harm's way; that her bow was swinging around so that she would pass by within less than a hundred feet of the schooner; that the oars had been dropped overboard, and were dragging alongside by the lanyards that were fastened to them; that some of the crew had arisen to their feet and stood facing the Hattie; and that the rest were busy with the howitzer in the bow.

"Heave to, or we'll cut you all to pieces!" shouted the officer in command; and Marcy could see him plainly now, for he stood erect in the stern-sheets with a boat-cloak around him. "We'll send canister and rifle balls into you next time, and they'll come so thick that they won't leave so much as a ratline of you. Heave to, I say!"

At this juncture a rifle or pistol shot, Marcy could not tell which it was, sounded from the schooner's quarter-deck, and the plucky officer was seen to throw his hands above his head, grasp wildly at the empty air for a moment, and then disappear over the side of the launch. In an instant all was confusion among the blue-jackets. The coxswain, who of course was left in command, shouted to the engineer to shut off steam, to the crew to drop their muskets and pick up their oars, and to the captain of the howitzer to cut loose with his load of canister.

"Lay down, everybody," cried Beardsley, who plainly heard all these orders; and suiting the action to the word, he quickly stretched himself upon the deck. Marcy had barely time to follow his example before the howitzer roared again, and the canister rattled through the rigging like hail, tearing holes in the canvas, splintering a mast here and a boom there, but never cutting a stay or halliard. If a topmast had gone by the board, or a sail come down by the run, the schooner would have been quite at the mercy of the launch; for the latter could have carried her by boarding, or taken a position astern and peppered the Hattie with shrapnel until Captain Beardsley would have been glad to surrender. The captain did not see how his vessel could escape being crippled, and he would have surrendered then and there if any one in the launch had called upon him to do so; but when he got upon his feet and saw that every rope held, and that the schooner was just on the point of entering her haven of refuge, he took heart again.

"Marcy, go aft and tell Morgan that that buoy ahead is a black one," said he, as soon as he had taken time to recover his wits. "Lay for'ard some of us and cut away this useless canvas. The Hattie ain't catched yet, doggone it all. I tell you, lads, it takes somebody besides a plodding, dollar-loving Yankee to get to windward of Lon Beardsley."

"The captain desired me to remind you that that buoy is a black one, and you want to leave it to port," said Marcy, taking his stand beside the man at the wheel. "Who fired that shot? It came from this end of the vessel."

"The second mate fired it," replied Morgan, "and he done it just in the nick of time. The killing of that officer was all that saved our bacon."

"Oh, I hope he wasn't killed!" exclaimed Marcy.

"You do, hey? Well, I don't. I'd like to see the last blockader on this coast tumbled into the drink in the same way. What did the old man say about it?"

"Not a word. I think he was too surprised to say anything."

"Was anybody hurt by that shell?" continued Morgan. "I seen the jib flying in the wind and the rail ripped up, and you and the old man was standing right there."

"Something or other knocked both of us flatter than pancakes," answered Marcy. "The captain must have been hit all over; but I was struck only on the arm, and I don't seem to have much use of it any more."

"You can go forward and lookout for the buoys, can't you? All right. Sing out when ever you see one, and I will stay here and take her through while the cap'n gets that headsail out of the way."

Before obeying this order Marcy stopped long enough to level the glass toward the place where he supposed the launch to be. Having worked the water out of the cylinders the engineer had shut off the stop-cocks so that she could not be heard, and as there was no flame shooting out of her smoke-stack, she could not be seen; but she was still on top of the water, and eager to do mischief. While Marcy was moving his glass around trying to locate her, the howitzer spoke again; but as the schooner took the wind free after rounding the first buoy, her course was changed, so that the shell passed behind her, and exploded far ahead and to the right.

"You've got your wish," said Morgan. "That shot means that they have picked up their cap'n, and that he's as full of fight as ever. Well, let him bang away, if he wants to. He can't hurt the sand-hills, and this channel is so crooked that he won't hit us except by accident."

"But he will follow in our wake, won't he?"

"Who cares if he does so long as he don't sight us? We'll dodge him easy enough after we get into the Sound. Now toddle for'ard and look out for me."

["It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," thought the boy, as he leaned his uninjured arm upon the splintered rail and brought the glass to his eye. "This night's work will put an end to the Hattie's blockade-running. If that fellow astern don't catch us, he will surely find and pull up the buoys, and then we can't follow the channel except by sending a boat on ahead with a lead-line. That might do when we were going out, but it wouldn't work running in if there was an enemy close behind us. Another thing, this Inlet will be watched in future. Now you mark my words."] "Red buoy on the starboard bow," he called out to the man at the wheel.

Morgan repeated the words to show that he understood them, and just then Beardsley came up, having seen the useless jib brought on deck and stowed away.

"Be careful and make no mistake, Marcy," said he. "It's a matter of life and death with us now—and money."

"I can call off the color of every buoy between here and the Sound," replied the pilot confidently. "I took particular pains to remember the order in which they were put out. Where are you hurt, Captain?" he added, seeing that the man had let go of his shoulder and was now holding fast to both elbows.

"I'm hurt in every place; that's where I am hurt," said Beardsley, looking savagely at Marcy, as if the latter was to blame for it. "Something hit me ker-whallop on this side, and the deck took me ker-chunk on the other; and I'll bet there ain't a spot on ary side as big as an inch where I ain't black and blue. You wasn't touched, was you? But I thought I seen you come down when I did."

"I went down fast enough," answered Marcy. "I bumped my head pretty heavily on the deck, but the worst hurt I got was right here. And I declare, there's a bunch that don't belong to me. Is it a fracture of the humerus, I wonder?"

"A which?" exclaimed the puzzled captain.

"I really believe the bone of my upper arm is broken," replied Marcy, feeling of the bunch to which he had referred. "It doesn't hurt much except when I touch it. It only feels numb."

Just then the howitzer spoke again, and another shrapnel flew wide of the schooner and burst among the sand dunes. Another and another followed at short intervals, and then the firing ceased. The launch had given it up as a bad job; the pursuit was over and Marcy and the captain were the only ones injured.

"She has either run hard and fast aground, or else she is amusing herself with them buoys of our'n," said Beardsley, when he became satisfied that the launch was no longer following in the schooner's wake. "Now, where's that good-looking son of mine who fired the lucky shot that tumbled that Yankee officer overboard? Whoever he is, I'll double his wages. He ought to have it, for he saved the vessel and her cargo. Let him show up."

The second mate obeyed the order, exhibiting the revolver that had fired the shot, and the captain complimented him in no measured terms. Marcy could not help acknowledging to himself that their escape was owing entirely to the prompt action the mate had taken without waiting for orders; but all the same he was sorry for that Federal officer.

Less than an hour's run sufficed to take the schooner out of the Inlet and into the Sound, and when Beardsley had given out the course and seen the sails trimmed to suit it, he went into his cabin, from which he presently issued to pass the word for Marcy Gray. When the boy descended the ladder he found the first mate and two foremast hands there besides the captain; and on the table he saw two pieces of thin board, and several strips of cloth that had evidently been torn up for bandages. He noticed, too, that the atmosphere was filled with the odor of liniment.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, in some alarm.

"We're going to set that—that—what-do-you-call-it of your'n," replied the captain cheerfully. The name that Marcy had given to the bone of his upper arm was too much for Mm. He could not remember it.

The boy knew that all sea captains have more or less knowledge of medicine and surgery. It is necessary that they should have, for sailors are often seized with illness, or meet with serious accidents when their ship is at sea, and so far from a doctor that without immediate aid from some source they would surely lose their lives. Marcy had read of a whaling captain, one of whose men was jerked overboard from his boat by a wounded whale, dragged for six hundred feet or more through the water with frightful speed, and who was finally released by his leg giving way to the strain. The captain saw that that leg must be attended to or the man would die. His crew were too badly frightened to help him, so he amputated the injured member himself; and all the surgical instruments his ship afforded were a carving-knife, a carpenter's saw, and a fish-hook. But he saved the man's life. Marcy thought of this and shuddered at the thought of submitting himself to Beardsley's rude surgery.

"I believe I would rather wait until we get to Newbern," said he doubtfully.

"Why, man alive, we may not see port for a week," answered the captain. "How do we know but what there are a dozen or more steam launches, like the one we've just left astern, loafing about in the Sound waiting for us? If there are, we'll have to get shet of 'em somehow, and that will take time. If we don't 'tend to your arm now, it may be so bad when the doctor sees it that he can't do nothing with it without half killing of you. Take off his coat and vest, men; and Morgan, you roll up his sleeve. There is folks around home who think you are for the Union, and that you ain't secesh, even if you do belong to my vessel. If you run foul of one of 'em while you are gone on your furlong, just point to your arm and tell him to hold his yawp."

"Are you going to give me a leave of absence?" asked Marcy, who was so delighted at the thought that he could scarcely keep from showing it.

"I reckon I'll have to. I ain't got no use for a one-handed man; but I'll keep your place open for you, never fear. Just see that, now. Ain't that a pretty looking arm for a white boy to carry around with him? It makes me hate them Yankees wusser'n I did before."

The wounded arm was already becoming inflamed, and it was painful, too; and although Beardsley's assistants were as careful as they could be, Marcy winced while they were helping him off with his coat and vest and rolling up his sleeve. When this had been done one of the men, in obedience to a slight nod from the captain, seized Marcy around the chest under his arms, the mate by a movement equally quick grasped his left wrist, and both began pulling in opposite directions with all their strength, while Beardsley passed his huge rough hands up and down over the "bunch" until he was satisfied that the protruding bone had been pulled back to its place. The operation was a painful one, and the only thing that kept Marcy from crying out was the remembrance of Beardsley's words "I ain't got no use for a one-handed man." That broken arm would bring him a furlough.

"There, now; that'll do. 'Vast heaving," said the captain, at length. "Put some of the stuff in that bottle on one of them bandages and hand it over here. Pretty rough way of getting to go home, but better than none at all, and I reckon your maw will be just as glad to see you as she would if you had two good arms. Don't you reckon she will?"

After his arm had been bandaged and placed in a sling, Marcy was quite willing to go into the forecastle and lie down in his bunk; and there he stayed until the schooner entered the Neuse River and a tug came alongside to tow her up to the city. This time there were plenty of cheers to welcome her, the first coming from the working parties who were building the fortifications, and the next from the soldiers and loafers who were assembled upon the wharf to which she was made fast, and who howled themselves hoarse when they caught sight of the holes in her sails, her broken bowsprit, and her splintered rail.

"I see that blockade running has its dangers as well as privateering," said Beardsley's agent, as he sprang over the rail and seized the captain's hand. "The Hattie is cut up pretty badly, but the Osprey was never touched. Been in a fight?"

"Well, no, not much of a fight, because we uns didn't have nothing to fight with. But the schooner ran through a pretty tol'able heavy fire, I tell you."

It was all over now, and Beardsley could afford to treat the matter with indifference; but Marcy remembered that when that splinter knocked him down, the captain was the worst frightened man in the crew. However, Beardsley was not as badly hurt as he thought he was. When he came to make an examination of his injuries, all he could find was a black and blue spot on one of his shoulders that was about half as large as his hand; but he made more fuss over that than Marcy Gray did over his broken arm.

"Anybody shot?" continued the agent.

"Well, yes; two of us got touched a little, but not enough to growl over. You see it was this-a-way——"

"I suppose I may go ashore now and hunt up a surgeon, may I not?" Marcy interposed.

He thought from the way Beardsley settled himself against the rail that he was preparing for a long talk with the agent, and that it would be a good plan to have his own affairs settled before the captain became too deeply interested in his narrative to listen to him. There was little to detain him in Newbern. On the way up the river Beardsley had given him a written leave of absence for ninety days, and a check on the bank for his money; and all he had to do besides presenting that check was to have his arm examined by a surgeon.

"Of course you can go," replied Beardsley. "And if I don't see you when you come back for your dunnage, don't forget them little messages I give you for the folks at home, nor them letters; and bear in mind that I want you back as soon as ever you can get well."

Marcy promised to remember it all, and the captain went on to say:

"He's the bravest lad that ever stepped in shoe leather. When them Yankees sent that shell into us and knocked him and me down and smashed his arm all to flinders, he stood in the bow and piloted us through Crooked Inlet as slick as falling off a log; and there was his arm broken all the while, and hanging by his side as limp as a piece of wet rope. Oh, he's a good one, and I don't for the life of me see how I am going to get on without him. I've said as much in them letters I wrote to the folks to home."

Under almost any other circumstances Marcy Gray would have been disgusted; but as it was, he was quite willing that Beardsley should talk about him in this strain as often as he felt like it.

"Perhaps it will help me with those secret enemies at home," he said to himself, as he stepped upon the wharf and forced his way slowly through the crowd, not, however, without being compelled to shake hands with a dozen or more who wanted to know when and where he got hurt and who did it, and all about it. "I should really like to see the inside of the letters the captain gave me to hand to Shelby and the rest. I wonder if he thinks I am foolish enough to open and read them? He'll not trap me that way; but I wouldn't trust any letters to him that I didn't want him to read, I bet you."

Arriving at a drug store which bore the name of a medical man upon one of its doorposts, Marcy entered and asked where he could find somebody to tell him whether or not his broken arm had been properly set and cared for.

"Step right this way, and I will tell you in less than five minutes," said the man who stood behind the counter. "How did you break it?"

"I was knocked down," replied Marcy.

"Who knocked you down?"

"A Yankee!"

"Heyday! Bull Run?"

"No, sir; Crooked Inlet."

"Well, I thought you looked like a seafaring man. What vessel do you belong to?"

"The blockade-runner Hattie. She used to be the privateer Osprey."

"Were you one of the brave fellows who captured the Mary Hollins?" exclaimed the surgeon, giving Marcy a look of admiration. "It was a gallant deed."

"I was there when she was taken," answered the boy, while the doctor was helping him off with his coat. "Do you know what become of her crew?"

"They were paroled and sent North long ago. We didn't want such folks among us."

"But they are not prisoners of war."

"That doesn't matter. They had to promise that they would not take up arms against us until they were regularly exchanged; and if they do, and we find it out, they will stand a fine chance of being strung up. You've got a pretty good surgeon aboard your ship, and he has made a good job of this. I wonder if I know him. Is he a Newbern man?"

"No, sir; he hails from up toward Plymouth. And he isn't a doctor, either. He's the captain."

"Oh, ah!" said the surgeon, who was very much surprised to hear it. "I see, now that I come to look at it closely, that it is not quite as straight as I thought it was. It sticks out a little on this side, and your arm will always be more or less crooked. It is unfortunate that you did not have a surgeon aboard; but we will have to let it go."

"Of course I can't do duty with one hand," said Marcy, "and so the captain has given me leave to go home for awhile. I can travel on the cars, I suppose?"

"There's nothing in the world to hinder it," replied the medical man, who seemed on a sudden to have lost all interest in Marcy and his injured arm. "I will do it up again and give you a little medicine, and you will get along all right. It's a mere trifle."

When Marcy asked what his bill was, he told himself that he made a mistake when he said it was the captain and not a doctor who set his arm, for the surgeon charged him a good round price for his trouble, as well as for the little bottle of tonic he wrapped up for him; and when he went to the telegraph office, the operator who sent off a dispatch to his mother made no distinction between him and a citizen. The dispatch ran as follows:

Arrived from Nassau this morning with a valuable cargo after a running fight with the Yankees. Had two men slightly injured. Will leave for Boydtown by first train.

"After mother reads that she will not be so very much shocked when she sees me with my arm in a sling," was what he told himself as he passed the dispatch over to the operator.

"Did you have a tight with one of the blockaders?" asked the latter carelessly. He had become accustomed to the sight of wounded men since the battle of Bull Run was fought, and did not take a second look at Marcy.

"It wasn't much of a fight, seeing that there was but one shot fired on our side," answered the pilot. "But that one shot was what brought us through. It wasn't a blockader, either, but a launch; and if you want to see what she did to us, step down to the wharf and take a look at the Hattie. One more round of canister would have made a wreck of us."

"And you happened to be one of the two who were wounded, I reckon," said the operator. "Fifty cents, please."

"The last time I sent off a dispatch from here you did not tax me a cent for it," Marcy reminded him. "Is your patriotism on the wane?"

"Not much; but you couldn't expect us to keep up that thank-ye business forever, could you? How would we run the line if we did? We think as much of the brave boys who are standing between us and Lincoln's Abolitionists as we ever did; but it takes the hard cash to pay operators and buy poles and wires."

Marcy had no trouble in getting his check cashed, and when he went back to the schooner after his valise and bundles, he had twenty-one hundred dollars in his pocket. But there were seventeen hundred dollars of it that did not belong to him. He was only keeping it until he could have opportunity to return it to the master of the Mary Hollins. He found that Captain Beardsley had gone ashore with his agent, and as Marcy had already said good-bye to him, it was not necessary that he should waste any valuable time in hunting him up. He took a hasty leave of his shipmates, hired a darkey to carry his luggage to the depot, and was in time to purchase his ticket for a train that was on the point of leaving for Goldsborough. He had hardly settled himself in his seat before he became aware that nearly all the passengers in the car were looking at him, and finally one of them came and seated himself by his side.

"You are not in uniform," said the passenger, "but all the same I take it for granted that it was the Yankees who put your arm in a sling."

"Yes, sir; they did it," answered Marcy.

"Well, now, I want to know if it's a fact that the Yankees outnumbered us two to one in that fight," continued the man.

"You refer to the battle of Bull Run, I suppose. I don't know. I wasn't there, and I don't hesitate to say that I am glad of it. One howitzer is as much as I care to face. I got this hurt while coming into Crooked Inlet on the schooner Hattie. She's a blockade-runner."

"Oh! well, if there's going to be a war, as some people seem to think, you blockade-runners will be of quite as much use to the Confederacy as the soldiers. We shall be dependent upon foreign governments for many things that we used to get from the North, and men like you will have to supply us. Was it much of a fight?"

Marcy briefly related the story, and when it was finished the man went back to his old seat; but during the journey the young pilot was obliged to tell more than a score of people that he was not present at the battle of Bull Run, and consequently could not have got his injury there. He kept his ears open all the way, and was gratified to learn that the Confederates had not followed up their victory, that they were not in Washington, and that there was no reason to suppose that they had any intention of going there immediately; and he thought he knew the reason why, when he heard one of the passengers say that a few more victories like Bull Run would ruin the Confederacy.

At an early hour the next morning Marcy stepped off the train at Boyd town and found Morris waiting for him. That faithful servitor's eyes grew to twice their usual dimensions when he saw his young master with his arm in a sling, and without waiting to learn the extent of his injuries, he broke out into loud lamentations, and railed at the Yankees in such a way that the by-standers were led to believe that old Morris was the best kind of a rebel.

"The Missus done tole me two men shot on the Hattie and las' night I dreamed you one of 'em," said he.

"Silence!" whispered Marcy angrily; "can't you see that you are drawing the attention of all the people on the platform by your loud talking? I wasn't shot, either. Come to the carriage and I will tell you all about it."

Even after Morris had been assured that the young pilot had merely been knocked down by a splinter, Marcy didn't tell him that that "splinter" weighed between fifteen and twenty pounds, for he knew it would get to his mother's ears if he did; and that his injuries were by no means serious; the old slave was not satisfied, but continued to scold and fume at such a rate that Marcy was glad when the carriage whirled through the gate and drew up at the steps, at the top of which his mother stood waiting to receive him.

"Da' he is, Missus; but the Yankees done kill him," exclaimed Morris, opening and shutting the carriage door with a bang, as if he hoped in that way to work off some of his excitement.



CHAPTER VIII.

A NOISE AT THE WINDOW.

Mrs. Gray's countenance grew white with alarm. She flew down the steps, and throwing both her arms about her son's neck, hid her face on his shoulder and sobbed violently. Marcy put his uninjured arm around her, and his mother leaned so heavily upon it that the boy thought she was going to faint.

"Now see what you have done, you black rascal, by wagging your tongue so freely," said Marcy angrily. "I've the best notion in the world to have you sent to the field."

"But, moster," protested the frightened coachman, "de Yankees did shoot——"

"Hold your tongue! If you lisp another word I will have you sent to the overseer as sure as you are a living darkey. Now take those things out of the carriage and put them in my room; and when you have done that, go off somewhere and spend an hour or two every day telling the truth, so that you will get used to it. Come into the house," he added gently, leading his mother up the steps, "and I will tell you all about it. I wasn't shot. I was struck by a splinter."

"Oh, Marcy," sobbed Mrs. Gray, "your face tells a different story. You have suffered—you are suffering now; and there isn't a particle of color in your cheeks. Don't try to deceive me, for I must know the worst sooner or later."

"I am not trying to deceive you," answered Marcy, although he was trying to break the disagreeable news as gently as he could. "I was knocked down by a splinter and my arm was broken."

"There now," began his mother.

"But it's all right," Marcy hastened to add. "Beardsley set the bone in less than three hours after it was broken, and the surgeon I consulted in Newbern said he made a good job of it. I don't know what you think about it, but I am not sorry it happened."

"Oh, Marcy! why do you say that?"

"Because it gave me a chance to come home. To tell you the truth, blockade running is getting to be a dangerous business. We had four narrow escapes this trip. Beardsley's impudence and a Union captain's simplicity brought us out of the first scrape, a storm came to our aid in the second, sheer good luck and a favoring breeze saved us in the third, and a shot from the second mate's revolver brought us out of the fourth. We are liable to fall into the hands of the cruisers any day; and suppose I had been captured and thrown into a Northern prison! You might not have seen me again for a year or two; perhaps longer. Bring those bundles in here and take the valise upstairs," he added to the coachman, who just then passed along the hall with Marcy's luggage in his hands. "Open that bundle, mother. You need not be ashamed to wear those dresses, for they were bought in Nassau with honest money—money that I earned by doing duty as a foremast hand. I didn't pay any duty on them because no one asked me for it. And in fact I don't know whether there is a custom-house in Newbern or not. The box in the other bundle contains nothing but bottles of quinine."

"What induced you to get so much?" asked Mrs. Gray, who had wiped away her tears and was trying to look cheerful again.

"Captain Beardsley first called my attention to the fact that medicine had gone up in price, and I saw by a paper I got in Nassau that the rebels are already smuggling quinine across the Potomac," answered Marcy. "There's a good deal of ague about here, and we'd be in a pretty fix if we should all get down with it, and no medicine in the house to help us out." Here he got up and drew his chair closer to his mother's side, adding in a whisper, "I've twenty-one hundred dollars in gold in my valise, lacking what I paid for my railroad ticket, and nearly four hundred dollars of it belongs to me. The rest belongs to the captain of the Hollins."

"Do you still cling to the hope that you will some day meet him again?" asked his mother.

"I know it will be like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but if I don't find him I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried to, and that I haven't spent any of his money. I'll keep it locked in my trunk until my arm gets so that I can handle a spade, and then I'll hide it in one of the flower beds. Now, how is everything about home? Has Kelsey shown his ugly face here since I went away, or have you heard anything from those 'secret enemies' that Wat Gifford spoke of? How has Hanson behaved himself?"

Mrs. Gray's report was so satisfactory that Marcy was put quite at his ease. She had had nothing to worry over, she told him, except, of course, his absence and Jack's, and if she had not received so many warnings she would not have suspected that there were such things as secret enemies around her. But she had relaxed none of her vigilance, and was always on her guard when any of the neighbors came to see her. It was a dreadful way to live, but there was no help for it.

By the time Marcy had removed some of the stains of travel from his face and clothing, supper was announced; and as he had to talk about something during the meal, he entertained his mother with a minute description of the exciting incidents that happened during the Hattie's homeward run. He could talk of these things in his ordinary tone of voice, and he did not care who overheard him. More than that, he was satisfied that every word he uttered in the presence of the girl who waited at table would go straight to Hanson's ears, and he was really talking for Hanson's benefit. He retired at an early hour, after his arm had been bathed and bandaged again (his mother could not keep back her tears when she saw how inflamed and angry it looked), and left his lamp burning, as he had done every night since his friend Gifford dropped that hint about a visit from an organized band of 'longshoremen. Before he got into bed he unlocked his valise and took from it two things that his mother knew nothing about,—a brace of heavy revolvers,—which he placed where he could get his hands upon them at a moment's warning. "Thank goodness the old flag is above me once more, and not that secession rag that Beardsley seems to be so proud of," thought Marcy, as he pounded his pillow into shape and drew the quilts over his shoulders. "If Colonel Shelby and the rest knew that there are two Union flags somewhere among these bedclothes, how long do you suppose this house would stand? If those men are such good rebels, I can't for the life of me understand why they don't go into the service, instead of staying at home and making trouble for their neighbors. I should think they would be ashamed of themselves."

There were plenty of such men all over the South, and Marcy Gray was not the only one who wondered why they did not hasten to the front, seeing that they were so very hostile to the Yankees and their sympathizers, and professed so much zeal for the cause of Southern independence. His cousin Rodney often asked himself the same question while Dick Graham was staying at his father's house, waiting for a chance to get across the Mississippi River. Tom Randolph, who could not forget that Captain Hubbard's Rangers had refused to give him the office he wanted, was Rodney's evil genius. Although Tom became in time commander of a small company of Home Guards, he could be for the old flag or against it, as circumstances seemed to require. When the Union forces took possession of Baton Rouge and the gunboats anchored in front of the city, Randolph sent more than one squad of Yankee cavalry to search Mr. Gray's house for firearms, and took measures to keep Rodney, Dick Graham, and the other discharged Confederates in constant trouble; but when General Breckenridge and his army appeared, and it began to look as though the rebels were about to drive the Union forces out and take possession of Baton Rouge and the surrounding country, Tom Randolph gave his scouts the names of all the Union men in Mooreville and vicinity, and of course they did not escape persecution. But Tom, sly as he was, could not play a double part forever. His sin found him out and his punishment came close upon the heels of it. We shall tell all about it in its proper place.