Marcy The Blockade Runner Part 16

CHAPTER X.

A COOL PROPOSITION.

Although the captain and Jack had not spoken to the first mate since the brig was captured, except it was in the presence of some member of the prize-crew, they had scowled and winked at him as often as the opportunity was presented, and the mate knew well enough what they meant by it and what they intended to do. He determined to do his part. He managed to exchange a few words with some of the brig's crew, whom he instructed to stand by him and be ready to lend a hand when the time came. He saw Jack make the first capture, with Smith's aid and Stebbins's, and by adroitly engaging the other three members of the prize-crew in conversation, it is probable that he kept them from taking note of what was going on in the waist. When he saw Jack make a rush for the companion-ladder, he seized the nearest Confederate, his men quickly overpowered the other two, and then he marched aft to tell his captain the good news. It was all done in less than two minutes, and Captain Semmes was none the wiser for it. The surprise was complete. There was not a shot fired, and the movements of the Yankee sailors were so rapid that resistance was useless.

"You've got the brig all to yourself again, Cap'n," said the mate. "What shall I do with these varmints?"

"Send them down here," was the reply. "And tell Stebbins to send his man down also."

As the four prisoners filed into the cabin, Jack was rather surprised to see that they did not appear to be at all cast down by the sudden and unexpected turn affairs had taken. Indeed, one of them, who spoke with a rich Irish brogue, boldly declared:

"Sure it's not mesilf that cares at all, at all. I've had enough of the b.l.o.o.d.y hooker."

"Have a care," whispered Jack, nudging him in the ribs with his elbow.

"Your commanding officer is in that state-room. He can hear every word you say."

"Sorry a wan of me cares whether he can or not," replied the sailor. "We were promised big wages and prize-money by the bushel if we would help capture the Yankee s.h.i.+ps on the high seas. We've took two prizes besides this wan, and the _Herndon_ but we put the torch to thim, and niver a cint of prize-money is there forninst the name of Paddy Scanlan on the books."

"Well, Paddy," said the captain, with a laugh, "you may abuse the rebels all you please, and no one aboard my vessel will say a thing to you.

Now, will you give your word of honor that you will behave yourselves as long as you stay aboard of me?"

"Sure I will," replied the sailor earnestly.

"I mean all of you rebels," said the captain. "You treated us very civilly while we were your prisoners, and I want to treat you in the same way if you will let me. Let's have your promise."

It was given without a moment's hesitation, and was to the effect that as long as they remained on the _Sabine_ they would make no disturbance, but would in all respects conduct themselves with as much propriety as though they had been regularly s.h.i.+pped as members of her crew.

"As long as you stand to that agreement I will allow you the liberty of the deck, beginning to-morrow morning," said the captain. "But I tell you plainly that if you go back from your word, I will have you in irons before you know what is the matter with you. Smith, stand at the foot of the ladder until you are relieved. On deck the rest of us!"

Never had the _Sabine's_ crew worked harder than they did on this particular night to bring their vessel about and get her on her course again; but this time the skipper did not intend to make for the port to which his cargo was consigned. He told his mates that as soon as the brig rounded the western end of the island of Cuba, he would fill away for Key West, which was the nearest Federal naval station.

"I won't trust myself and my s.h.i.+p in these waters an hour longer than I am obliged to," he declared. "How do I know but that there may be a dozen or more vessels like the _Sumter_ cruising about here, watching their chance to make bonfires of the defenseless merchant vessels? Now let this be a standing order: While we are under way we'll not speak a single s.h.i.+p, no matter what flag she floats. If you see a sail, run away from it."

"And strict obedience to that order saved our bacon," said Jack, in conclusion. "We got up to Key West without any mishap, turned our prisoners over to the commandant of the station, and then filled away for Boston, taking with us a cargo that ought to have gone another way.

We were warned to look out for little privateers--sailing vessels with one or two guns aboard--and the navy fellows told us that the coasts of North and South Carolina were particularly dangerous; but our brig was a grayhound, the captain had the fullest confidence in her, and so he held his course. But we kept a bright lookout night and day, and were almost worn out with watching by the time we reached our home port."

"You didn't see anything of those privateers, did you?" said Mrs. Gray.

"Yes; we sighted one somewhere in the lat.i.tude of Sandy Point," answered Jack. "She fired a couple of sh.e.l.ls at us, and tried to lay herself across our course; but she couldn't make it. We ran away from her as if she had been anch.o.r.ed."

"What sort of a looking craft was she?" exclaimed Marcy, starting up in his chair.

"Well, she was a fore-and-after and had figures painted on her sails to make us believe that she was a pilot boat," answered Jack, somewhat surprised at his brother's earnestness. "But she was about four times too big for a pilot boat. She hoisted Union colors, and when she found that she could not decoy us within range that way, she ran up the secession rag and cut loose with her bow-chaser; but she might as well have saved her ammunition, for she didn't come anywhere near us."

"And neither did the rifle-shots that you fired in return come anywhere near us," added Marcy.

"Anywhere near you?" exclaimed Jack, starting up in his turn. "What do you mean? What do you know about it?"

"I know all about it, for I was there," replied Marcy. "It was I who ran up those flags, and although I didn't dream that you were on the brig, you can't imagine how delighted I was when I saw that she was bound to give us the slip. That privateer was Captain Beardsley's schooner, and I was aboard of her in the capacity of pilot."

Sailor Jack settled back in his chair as if to say that that was the most astounding thing he had ever heard in his life.

"_Pilot!_" he exclaimed, at length. "Lon Beardsley doesn't need a pilot on this coast. He has smuggled more than one cargo of cigars through these inlets."

"I know that. But you are aware that Beardsley has been our enemy for years. He couldn't find any way to take revenge until this war broke out, and then he began troubling us. He knew, and he knows to-day, that I am Union all over, and down on secession and all who favor it, and when he offered me the pilot's berth and promised to do the fair thing by me, he was in hopes that mother would refuse to let me go; then, don't you see, he would have had an excuse to set our rebel neighbors against us on the ground that we were traitors to our State."

"I always knew that Lon Beardsley was beneath contempt, but this rather gets ahead of me," said Jack hotly.

"But it so happened that we saw through his little game. Mother never said a word, and I s.h.i.+pped as pilot aboard the privateer _Osprey_"

continued Marcy. "And, Jack (here he got up, moved his chair close to the sofa on which his brother was sitting and lowered his voice to a whisper), I was on her when she made her first and only capture, and upstairs in my valise I have seventeen hundred dollars in gold, my share of the money the _Mary Hollins_ brought when she was condemned and sold in the port of Newbern."

"That would be a nice little sum of money if it had been earned in an honorable way," observed Jack.

"But it wasn't," said Marcy, "and consequently I don't intend to keep it. I'm going to give it back to the one to whom it belongs. Oh, you needn't laugh. I mean it!"

"I know you do, and I hope that you will some day find the man; but I am afraid you won't. Where is Beardsley now?"

"I left him at Newbern. The presence of the cruisers on the coast frightened him so that he gave up privateering--he didn't want to run the risk of being captured with guns aboard of him for fear that he might be treated as a pirate--and took to running the blockade. We made one successful trip, taking out cotton and bringing back an a.s.sorted cargo worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars, and it was while we were trying to make Crooked Inlet on our way home that we came the nearest to being captured. We ran foul of a howitzer launch, which turned loose on us with shrapnel and canister, and gave me this broken arm and Beardsley a black and blue shoulder."

"I wish from the bottom of my heart that she had given him a broken head," said Jack. "Were you much hurt?"

"I don't mind it in the least," answered Marcy. "It has given me a chance to visit with mother and you. But I don't quite understand why you came home as you did. What made you so sly about it? Go more into particulars, but don't talk too loud."

"Is it a fact that you are afraid to converse in ordinary tones in your own house?" said Jack, looking inquiringly at his mother.

"Marcy and I have been very cautious, for we don't know whom to trust,"

answered Mrs. Gray. "One of our princ.i.p.al sources of anxiety is the money we have hidden in the cellar wall."

"Thirty thousand dollars!" whispered Marcy in his brother's ear. "Mother brought it home herself and spent three nights in fixing a place for it."

"Holy Moses!" said Jack under his breath. "Do the neighbors know it?"

"They suspect it, and that is what troubles us."

"I don't wonder at it. Why, mother, there are plenty of white trash about here who would rob you in a minute if they thought they could do it without bringing harm to themselves. I declare, I am almost afraid to leave home again."

"Oh, Jack!" said his mother, the tears starting to her eyes; "you surely will not leave me again."

"Not if you bid me stay, but I didn't think you would do it, knowing, as I did, that you are strong for the Union. That was the reason I came home in the night and threw stones at Marcy's window. I intended, after a short visit, to show my love for the old flag by making my way out to the blockading fleet, and s.h.i.+pping with the first commander who would take me. Consequently, I did not want to let any of the neighbors know that I came home at all. I was sure that there must be some Union people here, but of course I don't know who they are any more than I know who the rebels are; so I thought it best to keep my movements a secret.

However, I might as well have saved myself the trouble," added Jack, while an expression of anxiety settled upon his bronzed features; "of course I can't keep out of sight of the servants, and if there are any treacherous ones among them, as you seem to think, they will blab on me to the first rebel they can find."

"They will tell the overseer of it," said Marcy. "He's a sneak and a spy as well as a rebel."

"Why do you keep him, then?" demanded Jack. "Why didn't you kick him off the place as soon as you found out that he could not be trusted?"

"I hired him for a year," answered Mrs. Gray. "And if I should discharge him on account of his political opinions, can you not see that I would give the rebels in the settlement the very opportunity that I believe they are waiting for--the opportunity to persecute me?"

"Perhaps there is something in that," said Jack thoughtfully. "I must say that this is a nice way to live. But the Confederates can't say a word against you now, because Marcy sails under their flag."