True To His Colors Part 24

"They're going for us, mother," said he, with a smile. "That interview with Beardsley has satisfied me that I can't live up to my principles in this country as I should like to."

"I never dreamed of anything like this," said Mrs. Gray, at length.

"What are you going to do, Marcy?"

"There's only one thing I can do and keep a roof over your head," answered Marcy, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and striding up and down the porch. "I must accept his proposition; that's all there is about it."

"Oh, Marcy!" exclaimed his mother.

"It looks fair enough on the surface, but I tell you there is something back of it," said the boy, confidently. "He pretends to take it for granted that I am a rebel, but he doesn't really believe it, and this proposition of his is intended to try me and find out where I stand. Almost the last question our cla.s.s debated in school was: "Is a man ever justified in acting from policy rather than principle." I took the negative, and contended that he ought to act from principle, let the consequences be what they might; but I don't think so now. I shall join that rebel privateer, and I shall do it because I am sure something will happen to your house if I don't. Now please don't say a word about it. I feel bad enough as it is."

If Mr. Beardsley really was testing the boy hoping to find him wanting, he was doomed to be disappointed, for promptly at half-past two the next afternoon Marcy rode into his yard and went with him to see the schooner, which was hidden in a bayou half a mile away. Marcy knew the little craft as well as he knew his own, but her appearance had been so greatly changed that he would not have recognized her if he had seen her on the sound. Her black hull had been painted white, so that she would not offer so fair a mark for the cannon of any cruiser she might be unlucky enough to fall in with; her mids.h.i.+p section had been changed into a berth-deck, and she had gun-decks fore and aft. The two white men who had charge of her had hoisted her canvas to give it an airing, and Marcy saw a large figure "9" painted on her fore and main sails.

"That's to make folks believe that she is a pilot-boat," chuckled Mr. Beardsley. "We'll be almost certain to find some fellow creeping along inside of Diamond shoals, thinking of no danger, and he'll never try to sheer off when he sees us coming, kase he'll think we're friendly. He'll think different when he sees a puff of smoke go up from our bows, but then it will be too late for him to square away. Good scheme; don't you think so?"

Although Marcy had never felt greater contempt for a man in his life, he managed to get through the interview to his satisfaction; but whether or not Mr. Beardsley was satisfied, the boy could not tell. Sometimes he acted as if he was, and then again he looked and talked as if he suspected that Marcy was not half as enthusiastic as he pretended to be, and that his heart was set on something besides privateering.

"I'd like to capture this vessel, hoist d.i.c.k Graham's flag over it, and give her up to some man-of-war," he said to himself. "But if I should try it, I'd never dare show myself around home again. The game isn't worth the candle. Some of Uncle Sam's boys will knock her into kindling-wood if she stays outside long enough, and possibly they may send me to Davy's locker along with her. It's rather a desperate chance, but it's the only thing that will save mother from persecution. Perhaps the neighbors will be a little more civil to her when they find that I am in the service of the Confederacy." Then aloud he said: "When she gets her guns and stores aboard she will draw a good deal of water for Crooked Inlet, and I'd feel safer if I could have Julius at my elbow when-"

"Oh, that wouldn't do at all," interrupted Mr. Beardsley, stamping about the deck and shaking his head most emphatically. "Julius is a n.i.g.g.e.r and an abolitionist, and we don't want no such around. I've had carpenters at work on the schooner for almost two weeks, and there aint been one of my black people aboard of her."

"But they must all know that you have been doing something to her," replied Marcy.

"Of course. I told 'em that I was getting ready to go a-trading between Plymouth, Edenton, and Newbern, and that I was fixing on her up so't I could carry big cargoes."

"Mebbe they believed it and mebbe they didn't," was the boy's mental comment. "If the darkies hereabouts are as sharp as they are down Barrington way, they understand what this vessel is intended for as well as you do yourself."

"I won't have no n.i.g.g.e.rs aboard my privateer," continued Mr. Beardsley, who talked and acted as if he had grown in importance since those gun-decks were put into the schooner. "I wouldn't trust the best of 'em in times like these, and so I shall man my s.h.i.+p with whites. These men belong to my crew, and the rest will be just as good."

Marcy thought they might be better without hurting anything, for he did not at all like the appearance of the two fellows he had found in charge of the privateer. They had probably been picked up among the sailor boardinghouses in Newbern; and if the test of the crew were going to be like them, Marcy thought he would not care to be in their company for a great while at a time. He afterward learned that one of the men was deep in Mr. Beardsley's confidence.

Before the boy took leave of the owner of the privateer they came to a plain understanding on all points, agreed upon terms, and Marcy was to hold himself in readiness to sail for Newbern at any hour of the day or night. He felt almost like a criminal when he rode home to meet his mother, but, although he was among the first, he was by no means the last, to serve the cause of the Confederacy because he could not help himself.

CHAPTER XVI.

SECRET ENEMIES.

"It's done and it can't be undone," said Marcy, after he had told his mother just what pa.s.sed between him and the captain of the privateer. "I a.s.sured Mr. Beardsley that I didn't think the government would hang his men as pirates if they were taken on the high seas, but since I have seen a couple of them I have my doubts. If the s.h.i.+p-keepers are fair specimens of the crew, they are a hard lot, and I don't want to be captured in such company. This is being true to my colors with a vengeance."

That was what his mother thought, but she did not say a word to add to the bitterness of his feelings. Knowing the temper of the people around her as well as she did, she could not see that Marcy could have done anything else. Marcy Gray ate little supper that night, and as soon as it began to grow dark, he left the house and went out on the road to take a stroll. He wanted to be alone, even though the thoughts that crowded thick and fast upon him were anything but pleasant company. Almost without knowing it he kept on until he arrived within sight of the gate leading to Mr. Beardsley's yard, and saw three men standing close inside of it. The night was so dark he could not see who they were, and without giving the circ.u.mstance a second thought, he was about to retrace his steps, when the men moved into the road, and two of them made a few steps in his direction, but turned suddenly about as if listening to some parting instructions from the one they had left behind. Marcy waited to see no more, but walked rapidly homeward, unconscious of the fact that the men followed a little distance in his rear, although they did not see him. When he reached the carriage-way Marcy did not immediately go to the house, but paced up and down the road in a brown study, from which he was presently aroused by the sound of footsteps. A few seconds later a figure loomed up in the darkness, and Marcy thought he recognized in it one of the men he had seen on board the schooner that afternoon. The figure discovered him at the same moment, halted abruptly, and said in cautious tones, as if fearful of being overheard:

"Who's there?"

"It's no one who will hurt you," was the boy's reply. "Toddle right along about your business."

"Any dogs laying around?"

"Nary dog. I'm alone."

These answers must have satisfied the man, for he advanced without further hesitation, and peered sharply into Marcy's face.

"What you doing out here?" he asked, as though he had a right to know; and then Marcy saw that he had not been mistaken. The man was one of the s.h.i.+p-keepers.

"What's that to you, and who are you?" he replied, with spirit.

"I don't mean any offense-I don't really," said the man hastily. "But it is rather strange that I should find you so easy when you are the very one I was looking for. I didn't know whether it would be safe to come or not, for you have dogs in plenty, like all the rest of the planters about here. I am Sam Tierney, and I belong to Beardsley's privateer. You are Marcy Gray, and have been engaged to take the schooner through out-of-the-way inlets that the old man is not acquainted with. Let's go down the road a piece. I'd like to talk to you a minute, if you don't care."

"Why can't you say what you have to say right where you stand?" inquired Marcy. "There's no one to overhear you if your communication is private."

"Private? Well, you'll think so when you hear what it is. Come down the road."

It was right on the end of the boy's tongue to ask the man why he had come to see him so soon after holding that conversation at Mr. Beardsley's gate, and what he had done with his companion; but, on reflection, he decided that he would not say a word on these points. This might be an opportunity to learn something, he told himself, but there was one thing of which he was sure: he would not trust himself within reach of that missing s.h.i.+p-keeper, who might be hidden somewhere down the road, ready to pounce upon him the moment this man Tierney brought him to the ambush. He would remain right where he was, within earshot of the faithful Bose, who would be likely to make things lively for the privateersman if he attempted any violence. There was something in the wind, the boy was sure of that; but he could not, for the life of him, think what it could be.

"I don't care to go down the road," said he. "What objection can you have to this place? We can see in every direction, and there are no bushes behind which an eavesdropper could hide himself."

It was plain that Tierney was not satisfied with this arrangement. He walked about with his hands in his pockets, kicked a pebble or two out of his way, and finally wanted to know if Marcy would promise, honor bright, that he would not repeat a word of what might be said to him.

"No; I'll not make any such promise," Marcy answered promptly. "And you would be foolish to put any faith in it if I did. I don't want you to tell me anything confidentially, for I must be left free to do as I think best about repeating it."

The s.h.i.+p-keeper was plainly surprised at this answer, for he gave utterance to a heavy oath under his breath and kicked some more pebbles out of the road. Marcy waited patiently for him to speak, for he was positive that the man had come there with something on his mind, and that he would not go away until he had told what it was.

"You're mighty suspicious," said he, at length, "and I don't know but you have reason to be. You are a Union man."

"Who told you that?" exclaimed Marcy, somewhat startled.

"A little bird whispered it to me."

"Well, the next time you see that little bird tell him to mind his own business. My political views are nothing to him or you either."

"I wouldn't get huffy. The old man says-" began Tierney, and then he stopped and caught his breath.

"Aha! The old man says so, does he?" thought Marcy. "And he tells his foremast hands what he thinks about his neighbors, does he? I must be cautious. Well, go on; what does the old man say?"

"He says he has engaged you to act as pilot," replied the man, with some confusion.

"So he has; and if he chooses to trust his vessel in my hands in channels and inlets that he knows nothing about, what have you to say? He wouldn't do it if he did not think I would serve him to the best of my ability, would he? But what has my politics to do with the position I hold aboard that privateer?"

"Nothing much," answered Tierney, turning away. "But they have a good deal to do with the proposition I was going to make to you if I had found you to be the good Union I heard you were."

Now Marcy thought he began to see daylight, but he said not a word. Tierney acted as though he was about to go away, but the boy knew he wouldn't.

"I'm a Union man," said he.

"That's nothing to me, but if you are, I don't see why you stay about here. You've no friends in this State to speak of. Go up to the United States."

The s.h.i.+p-keeper was evidently waiting for Marcy to ask him about the proposition to which he had referred a moment before, but he waited in vain. It was no part of Marcy's plan to draw the conversation back into that channel. Tierney saw that he must take the initiative himself, and he did it very abruptly.

"Look here, pilot," said he. "There's no use in your mincing matters with me in this way. Just a moment," he added, seeing that the boy raised his hand as if he were about to speak. "I am a Union man all over, my pardner is another, and you are another. I know it as well as I know anything, and the old man knows it-I mean, he as good as said he had heard of it, too."