"Not much else in the city," replied one of the young soldiers. "But there's a heap going on about five miles below. There's a corps of engineers down there laying out a system of fortifications which are to be a mile long. It will take eight or nine thousand men to garrison them, and they will be defended by thirty-one guns."
"But I don't see any sense in it," said the other, who seemed to think he had learned considerable of the art of war since he put on his gray jacket. "A Yankee army will never come so far south as Newbern, and their gunboats can't get past the forts at Hatteras."
But, all the same, the Confederate authorities thought the works ought to be pushed to completion, and so they were; but they did not amount to much, for Burnside's troops captured them after a four hours' fight, with the loss of only ninety-one men killed, the garrison retreating to Newbern and taking the cars for Goldsborough. When Marcy heard of it a few months later, he wondered if his new acquaintances were in the fight, and if they still held to the opinion that the Yankees were not brave.
After leaving the post-office they spent an hour on board the Osprey and parted at last well pleased with the result of their meeting, and fully satisfied in their own minds that the Yankees had been so badly whipped at Bull Run that they would never dare face the Confederate soldiers again. At least the two recruits were satisfied of it; but Marcy thought he knew better.
On the morning of the next day but one, a tug came alongside and towed the schooner up to a warehouse, where there was a load of cotton waiting for her; and for want of something better to do, Marcy hunted up a cotton-hook and assisted in rolling the heavy bales on board. The little vessel was so changed in appearance that a landsman would hardly have recognized her. The treacherous figure "9," which Beardsley had caused to be painted on her sails, in the hope that merchant vessels would take her for a harmless pilot-boat, was not to be seen; all the black paint about her, from the heel of her bowsprit to the crosstrees, had given place to a bluish-white; and on both sides of her bow and over her cabin door the name Hattie appeared in large gilt letters.
"Now, when them Hollins men get home and try to give the war ships a description of the privateer that captured them, they will be mighty apt to shoot wide of the mark, won't they?" said Captain Beardsley, who was much pleased with the work the painters had done under his instructions. "There ain't the first thing aboard of us to show that we used to be engaged in the privateering business. Oh, I'm a sharp one, and it takes something besides a Yankee to get the start of me."
Beardsley was so impatient to get to sea, and so very anxious to handle the fortune he was sure he was going to make by his first attempt at blockade running, that he employed all the men that could be worked to advantage, and took on board every bale he could possibly find room for. The deck load was so large that it threatened to interfere with the handling of the sails! and when a tug pulled the schooner's head around till it pointed down the river, she set so low in the water that she could not show her usual speed, even with the tide in her favor, and Tierney said in Marcy's hearing that he believed he could hoist a sail in a washing-tub and reach Nassau before the schooner could leave the sand dunes of Hatteras out of sight. But the captain did not seem to think he had made any mistake in loading his vessel, although he did show some anxiety for her safety; for when she reached Crooked Inlet he walked aft and took charge of the wheel himself, and without saying one word to the young fellow whom he called his pilot, until he saw the latter looking at him as if he wanted to know what Beardsley meant by such work.
"There, now," said the captain, by way of explanation, "I thought you was below; I did for a fact. And so I said to myself that I wouldn't bother you, but would try and take her through without your help, just to see if I could do it, you know. Supposing you was the only one aboard who knew the channel, and something should happen to you, and I should want to come through here in a hurry to get out of the way of a war ship that was close in my wake; wouldn't I be in a pretty fix? Now stand by, so't you can give me a word in case I don't hold her just right."
"You old hypocrite," thought Marcy. "If that was the first lie you ever told it would choke you. So he thinks something is going to happen to me, does he? Now what does he mean by that?"
Captain Beardsley had done nothing more than Marcy expected him to do, but he did not have a word of fault to find with it, as a regular pilot would have done when he saw his business taken out of his hands in so unceremonious a fashion. If the skipper was willing to pay him five hundred dollars for doing nothing, the boy didn't think he ought to complain. He took his stand close by the captain's side, but he did not touch the wheel, nor did he so much as look at the black and red buoys that marked the channel. He was turning these words over in his mind: "Suppose something should happen to you!" Was he to understand that Beardsley had made up his mind to get rid of him in some way?