"I told her we shouldn't need a warm breakfast," said Marcy. "But this looks as though she had stayed up all night on purpose to have one ready for us."
The only thing the boys had to do before they left the room was to hide some papers which they did not want anybody to see while they were gone—to wit, Marcy's leaves of absence, signed by Captain Beardsley, and the letter of recommendation that the master of the smuggling vessel had given Jack. These they slipped under the edge of the carpet, where the boys thought they would be safe (they little dreamed that the time would come when that same carpet would be torn up and cut into blankets for the use of Confederate soldiers); but the papers which related to the part he had taken in rescuing the brig Sabine from the hands of the Sumter's men, Jack put carefully into his pocket. They were documents that he would not be afraid or ashamed to show to the officers of the blockading fleet.
That was the last breakfast that Jack Gray ate under his mother's roof for long months to come. Realizing that it might be so, it required the exercise of all the will power he was master of to keep him from showing how very gloomy he felt over the coming separation. He was glad when the ordeal was over, when the last kiss and the last encouraging words had been given, and he and Marcy, with the two rival flags stowed away in a valise, were on their way to the creek. Greatly to Marcy's surprise, though not much to Jack's, they found the little skiff which did duty as the Fairy Belle's tender drawn out upon the bank, and Marcy was almost certain that he saw the woolly head of the boy Julius drawn out of sight behind the schooner's rail.
"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Where are the ship-keepers?"
"Let's go aboard and find out," replied Jack, with a twinkle in his eye which said that he could tell all about it if he were so inclined. "I was afraid we would have to tow out to the river; but this is a topsail breeze that will take us down there without any trouble at all. Take the valise and get in and I will shove off."
Marcy had plenty of questions to ask, but knowing that his brother would not take the least notice of them unless he felt like it, he stepped into the tender and picked up one of the oars. A few sturdy strokes sufficed to lay the skiff alongside the schooner, and the first thing Marcy did when he jumped aboard, leaving Jack to drop the small boat astern, was to look down the hatchway that led into the forecastle. There stood Julius, as big as life, with his feet spread out, his hands resting on his hips, and a broad grin on his face.
"What are you doing there, you imp of darkness?" exclaimed Marcy. "Didn't you understand that we don't want any Abolitionists aboard of us this trip?"
"G'long now, honey," replied the boy, turning his head on one side and waving Marcy away with his hand. "Ise heah 'cording to Marse Jack's orders."
"That's all right," said Jack, who had come aboard by this time and was making the skiff fast to the stern. "You see," he added, coming forward, "I wanted to make all the darkeys on the place think that I am going down to Newbern to join the rebel gunboat that so many people seem to think is being built there."
"Aw, g'long now, Marse Jack," said Julius. "Mebbe de niggahs all fools, but dey ain't none of dem b'lieves dat."