"You hold your tongue," said Jack good-naturedly. "Perhaps our darkeys are all right, and perhaps they are not. It won't do in times like these to trust too many with things that you don't want to have scattered broadcast over the neighborhood. Our nigs all know, Marcy, that you have been in the habit of taking Julius with you on all your trips about the coast, and when I told him to stay behind I did it with an object. I meant to take him and he knew it. You will need his help coming back, and his presence will give weight to the story we are going to tell the blockaders."
"But what will the hands say when they miss him?" inquired Marcy. "What will mother think?"
"Dey'll all think I done took to de swamp," declared Julius, with such a hearty guffaw that it made the boys laugh to hear it. "Dat's what I tole 'em all I going to do, and I ain't nevah coming back no mo' till Marse Marcy come too."
"You see he played his part well. There's the chink I promised you," said Jack, tossing a gold coin down to the boy, who scrambled for it as though some one was trying to get it away from him.
"But what has become of the two ship-keepers?" said Marcy. "They were told to remain on board till we came."
"Law-zee, Marse Marcy," exclaimed Julius, with another laugh, "you jes' oughter see dem niggahs hump demselves when I swum off to de schooner and cotch de bob-stay. 'Oh, dere's one of dem white things,' dey holler; but I ain't white and I knows it, and den dey run for de skiff and jump in and go off to de sho' so quick you can't see 'em for de foam dey riz in de watah."
"Did you scare them away?" exclaimed Marcy.
"I reckon so, sar; kase dere ain't nobody but Julius been on de schooner or 'bout it sence dat time."
"Well, let's get to work," said Jack. "Julius, you stay below till I tell you to come up, do you hear? If I see so much as a lock of your wool above the combings of the hatch, I'll chuck you over for the catfish."
A laughing response from the black boy showed just how much he feared that the sailor would carry this threat into execution; but it kept him below, and that was what Jack wanted. As matters stood now, Julius could account for his absence from the plantation by saying that he had got angry and run away because Jack ordered him to stay ashore; but he couldn't say that with any hope of being believed if any of the settlers along the coast saw him on board the schooner.