Marcy The Blockade Runner Part 28

"It's too late to think of that now," replied the sailor. "But I will tell you this for your encouragement: You won't see any horns and hoofs if you do just as you are told. But if you begin lying, you'll see and hear some things that will make your eyes bung out as big as my fist.

Crawl over, Marcy, and I will hand you the boat-hook."

Marcy clambered into the skiff followed by Julius, Jack lingering behind long enough to lash the rudder amidships. Then he also took his place in the tender and picked up one of the oars, Julius took the other, Marcy knelt in the bow to feel for the channel with his boathook, and the work of towing the schooner through the Inlet was begun. There was not a buoy in sight, and when he removed them the officer whose business it was to guard that particular part of the coast must have thought he had done his full duty, for the active little launch that Marcy so much dreaded did not put in her appearance. They pa.s.sed through the Inlet without running the _Fairy Belle_ aground or seeing anything alarming; and it was not until the broad Atlantic opened before them that the long-expected hail came.

"Not a thing in sight," said Jack, with some disappointment in his tones. "I was in hopes we could get through with our business so that you could return to the Sound before daylight, but perhaps it is just as well as it is. You want to keep away from those soldiers long enough to make them believe that you have been to Newbern. Haul the skiff alongside, and we'll fill away for Hatteras."

"Jack, Jack!" exclaimed Marcy suddenly, "there comes something."

Looking in the direction indicated by his brother's finger, the experienced sailor distinctly made out the white canvas of a natty little schooner that was holding in for the Inlet. It was the most unwelcome sight he had seen for many a day.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

"What is she, Jack?" said Marcy, in a suppressed whisper. "Do you make her out?"

His voice was husky, and he trembled as he asked the question, for he knew by the exclamation that fell from his brother's lips that those white sails were things he did not like to see.

"I make her out easy enough, in spite of her disguise," was Sailor Jack's reply. "And I would rather meet all the gunboats in Uncle Sam's navy than her."

"Disguise!" Marcy almost gasped. "You surely don't think----"

"No, I don't think anything about it," Jack interposed. "I know that that is Captain Beardsley's schooner. I wish from the bottom of my heart that she had been sunk or captured before she ever caught us here; but it is too late to get away from her. She will go by within less than twenty yards of us."

"And do you think Beardsley will know the _Fairy Belle_ in her new dress?" asked Marcy, who had never before been so badly frightened.

"Being an old sailor he can't help it."

"Of course he will mistrust what brought us out here, and spread it all through the settlement," added Marcy.

"That is just what he will do," said Jack truthfully.

"And what will Shelby and Dillon and the rest of them do to us--to mother?"

"You must make it your business to see Aleck Webster as soon as you get home," replied Jack. "Tell him that Beardsley has returned, that he caught us out here, and that the time has come for him and his friends to show their hands. I think you will have time to see Aleck before Beardsley gets home, because he's got to go to Newbern with his cargo."

All this while Captain Beardsley's blockade-runner had been swiftly drawing near to the mouth of the Inlet, where the _Fairy Belle_ lay rising and falling with the waves, and now she dashed by within less than a stone's throw of them. The boys, who were standing up in their skiff holding fast to the _Fairy Belle's_ rail, could not see a man on her deck except the lookout in the bow and the sailor at the wheel. The lookout was Beardsley himself; Marcy and his brother would have recognized his tall form and broad shoulders anywhere. He kept his eyes fastened upon the _Fairy Belle_ as he swept by, but he did not say a word or change his course by so much as an inch. In five minutes more he was out of sight.

"Now will somebody tell me what that old villain wants of a pilot?"

exclaimed sailor Jack, as he climbed over the rail and turned about to help Marcy up. "He knows more about Crooked Inlet than you do, or he couldn't run it with all his muslin spread and no buoys to mark the channel."

"I always said he didn't need a pilot," replied Marcy. "He has kept me with him on purpose to torment mother."

"He'll not do it any longer," said Jack confidently. "You must send word to those Union men as soon as you get home. If you don't, Beardsley will make it so very hot for you that by the time the fire gets through burning mother won't have a roof to go under when it rains. Stand by, Julius."

Jack and the darkey went forward to hoist the headsails, and Marcy, filled with the most gloomy forebodings, undid the fastenings of the wheel and laid his uninjured hand upon one of the spokes. One after the other the sails were given to the breeze, lights were put out to show the first cruiser they met that they were honest folks going about honest business, and Jack came aft to relieve his brother.

"I have been thinking of Barrington," said the latter, as he backed away and leaned up against the rail. "It has somehow run in my mind that our little settlement would escape the horrors of war, but the events of the last half hour have opened my eyes. We're going to see trouble."

"I really believe you are," answered Jack. "And when it comes, you must show what you are made of. I have no fear but that you will stand up to the rack like a man."

"It isn't myself I care for; it's mother."

"I know; but when it comes to the pinch you will find that she's got more pluck than you have. That money is what scares me. If the suspicions of the authorities become aroused, look out. But don't lisp a word of that where mother can hear it."

"Oh, Ma.r.s.e Jack," exclaimed Julius, who just then came aft in two jumps, "de Yankees out da'."

"Out where?" inquired Jack, while Marcy's heart began beating like a trip-hammer. "Oh, yes; I see them now. Stand by with a lantern, Julius."

The darkey hastened forward to obey the order, muttering as he went that Ma.r.s.e Marcy would have to take de light kase he wasn't going nigh dem Yankees till he seed 'em fust, and the schooner held on her course. What the boys saw was a bright light shining through the darkness a short distance off the starboard bow, and what they heard a moment later was the puffing of a small but exceedingly active steam engine. The light presently disappeared but the puffing continued, increasing in force and frequency as the approaching launch gathered headway, and then came the hail:

"Schooner ahoy!" And almost in the same breath the same voice added: "All ready with that howitzer."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Jack promptly; and antic.i.p.ating the next command he gave the wheel a rapid turn and spilled the sails, while Marcy took the lantern Julius gave him and held it over the side.

In five minutes more a large launch, carrying a crew of twenty men and a twelve-pound howitzer in the bow, came alongside, half a dozen pairs of brawny hands laid hold of the _Fairy Belle's_ rail, and an officer, dressed in an ensign's uniform, came over the side, being immediately followed by four or five blue-jackets, armed with cutla.s.ses. What sort of a reception they expected to meet at the hands of the _Fairy Belle's_ crew it is hard to tell, but they were plainly surprised when they looked about her deck and found that there was no one there to oppose them.

"Who are you?" demanded the officer, as Jack slipped a becket over one of the spokes in the wheel and came forward to meet him. "What schooner is this and where are you going?"

"This schooner is the _Fairy Belle_ and she is the property of my brother," answered Jack, waving his hand in Marcy's direction. "We are going to the blockading fleet. And as to who I am--will you be kind enough to run your eye over these? They will answer the question for you."

As Jack said this, he placed his papers in the officer's hand, while Marcy held up the lantern so that he could see to read them. He was by no means so surprised as Marcy expected him to be, and the reason was simple enough. Since the forts at Hatteras Inlet were captured, scarcely a day pa.s.sed that some vessel of the blockading fleet did not hold communication with Union people on sh.o.r.e. There was more love for the old flag in that secession country than most of us dreamed of. If Marcy Gray had known this he would not have felt as uneasy as he did.

"I have been on the watch for an audacious little blockade-runner that slipped by one of our boats into this Inlet a few weeks ago," said the officer, as he folded the papers and handed them back to their owner.

"You're quite sure you're not the fellow?"

"Do I answer his description?" asked Jack, in reply.

"Well, no; I can't say that you do. But it is very easy to disguise a vessel of this size."

"And it is just as easy for you to look around and see if I have any place to stow a cargo," said Jack. "Come below, if you please."

Taking the lantern from his brother's hand Jack led the way through the standing-room into the _Fairy Belle's_ cabin, where he stopped to throw back the cushioned top of one of the lockers.

"Here's the flag I have sailed under ever since I was old enough to shin aloft," said he, taking up the carefully folded Union banner. "The other is the one Semmes's boarding officer hoisted on the _Sabine_ when she was captured. When we took her out of the hands of the prize crew I hauled it down and kept it. It brought us safely by Plymouth and Roanoke Island, and I hope it will take my brother safely back."

With this introduction Jack went on to give the officer a hasty description of the state of affairs in and around the settlement in which his mother lived, and told what the Confederates were doing at Roanoke Island; and all the while he was leading the officer from one room to another and showing him all there was to be seen on the Fairy Belle. But he did not say a word about the _Hattie_. The officer did not know that that "audacious little blockade-runner" had slipped through his fingers, and Jack thought it would be the part of wisdom to steer clear of the subject of blockade-runners if he could. A reference to them might lead to some questions that he would not care to answer.

"I am entirely satisfied with your story," said the officer, when they returned to the deck. "But, all the same, I shall have to send you to my commander. I have no authority to act in a case like this."

"Very good, sir," replied Jack. "We are quite willing to go. Do I understand that you take the schooner cut of our hands?"

"By no means," was the prompt reply. "I will put a petty officer aboard of you to act as your pilot, and you can run the vessel down yourselves.

I must stay about here till daylight and look out for that blockade-runner. Bo'son's mate!"