"Why, then, France may help Uncle Sam," exclaimed Marcy. "She has always been friendly to us, and didn't she send troops here during our Revolutionary war to help us whip the English?"
"She did; but what was the reason she sent them troops over here?" demanded the captain, who had heard this question discussed a good many times while Marcy was at home on his leave of absence. "Was it because she had any love for republican—republican—ah—er—institutions? No, sir. It was because she wanted to spite the English for taking Canady away from her. France won't lift a hand to help the Yankees if we get into a row with them."
Beardsley took another turn about his quarter-deck, lighted a fresh cigar, and became confidential.
"Something tells me that this business of privateering ain't a going to last long, and so I think some of dropping it and starting out in another," said he. "Any idea what it is?"
Marcy replied that he had not.
"Well, it's trading—running the blockade."
"To what ports?" asked the boy.
"I can't rightly tell till I get some word from them vessels that's just went out," was the answer. "But it'll be Nassau or Havana, one of the two. I'll take cotton out—cotton is king, you know, and must be had to keep all them working people in England from starving—and bring medicine back. Medicine is getting skurse and high-priced already. And percussion caps. They're the things you can make money on. Why, I have heard it said that there wasn't enough gun caps in the Confederacy to fight a battle with till Captain Semmes made that tower of his through the Northern States, buying powder and bullets, and making contracts with the dollar-loving Yankees to build cannon to shoot their own kin with. But I want to see how the land lays before I go into the business of running the blockade. If there's big risk and little profit I ain't in."
"What port will you run out of?" was Marcy's next question; and when the captain said it would probably be Wilmington, the boy was delighted, for he expected to hear him announce that after he gave up privateering and took to blockade-running he would no longer need the services of a pilot. But if such a thought came into Beardsley's mind he did not speak it aloud. Just then he was called to another part of the deck and Marcy picked up his valise and went below.
"Beardsley doesn't mean to let me go," he soliloquized, as he tossed the valise into his bunk and opened the locker in which he had stowed his bedding for safe-keeping. "He's got me fast, and there's no chance for escape as long as the Osprey remains in commission. Well, there's one comfort: Beardsley is not a brave man, and he'll make haste to lay the schooner up the minute he has reason to believe that it is growing dangerous outside."