Three evenings after that eventful night a vessel was seen steaming down the river showing the Brilliant’s night signal. She passed us, rounded to astern of the Benton, and then steamed up within hailing distance.
“Benton ahoy!” came the hail in Willetts’ familiar voice. “I wish to communicate, sir. Can I come alongside?”
“Very well; come on board yourself.”
I heard the captain’s gig called away, and in a few minutes Willetts, looking as pale as a ghost, stood in my cabin.
“Captain Kelson,”—he stammered.
“What has happened to you, sir?” I queried, for the man’s manner warned me that something was wrong.
“Captain Glenny escaped last night, sir!” he said, as he sank into a chair.
“Escaped!”
And then he told me as much of the story as he knew, which was later supplemented, bit by bit, from different sources.
Three months before, Glenny had made the acquaintance of a Miss ——, a very bright, dashing girl, devoted to the cause of the Confederacy and willing, as she often boasted, to sacrifice anything but her honor for her country. She lived near the river, within Glenny’s beat, and she soon discovered that he was attracted by her beauty, which was very striking, and it was not long until she had made him her willing and abject slave, body and soul.