"You needn't be scared!" he said. (He had been just as much scared as anybody.) "That man over there says it will be all right. We can go back with the pilot. People often do that. It will be all the more fun. Don't bother the engineer. There's nothing I'd like better than a trip back with a pilot!"
"That's so," said Harry; "I never thought of the pilot."
"But are you sure he'll take you back?" asked Rectus, while Tom Myers and his brother George looked very pale and anxious.
"Take us? Of course he will," said Scott. "That's one of the things a pilot's for,—to take back passengers,—I mean people who are only going part way. Do you suppose the captain will want to take us all the way to Savannah for nothing?"
Rectus didn't suppose that, and neither did any of the rest of us, but I thought we ought to look up the captain and tell him.
"But, you see," said Scott, "it's just possible he might put back."
"Well, don't you want to go back?" I asked.
"Yes, of course, but I would like a sail back in a pilot-boat," said Scott, and Harry Alden agreed with him. Tom Myers and his brother George wanted to go back right away.
We talked the matter over a good deal. I didn't wish to appear as if I wanted to get rid of the fellows who had been kind enough to come all the way from Willisville to see me off, but I couldn't help thinking that it didn't look exactly fair and straightforward not to say that these boys were not passengers until the pilot was ready to go back. I determined to go and see about the matter, but I would wait a little while.
It was cool on deck, especially now that the vessel was moving along, but we all buttoned up our coats and walked up and down. The sun shone brightly, and the scene was so busy and lively with the tug-boats puffing about, and the vessels at anchor, and the ferry-boats, and a whole bay-full of sights curious to us country boys, that we all enjoyed ourselves very much—except Tom Myers and his brother George. They didn't look happy.