"Halt, two friends with a rebel prisoner!" shouted the sentry, who was not the proper person to decide any difference of opinion there might be between the boy who sat in the stern-sheets, with a steering-oar in his hand, and the man who sat in the bow with his arms tied behind his back. "Corporal of the guard number eight!"
The only way to halt in that current was to bring the boat ashore, and this Marcy and Julius proceeded to do. They were all on the bank when the corporal came up, and Hanson would have given Marcy a very black character indeed if the non-commissioned officer had been disposed to listen to him; but he said he didn't want to hear a word of it, and ordered Marcy to take off his revolvers. When this had been done, and the corporal had the belt in his hand, he demanded:
"Now, then, what do you want?"
"Of course I shall have to tell my story to the officer of the day, but
I should like much to see Captain Burrows," replied Marcy.
"Captain Burrows happens to be officer of the day," said the corporal, who no doubt wondered how Marcy came to be acquainted with him. "Come on, and I will take you to him."
"It might be well to release this man," suggested Marcy. "He has been confined a good while."
"No, I guess I will turn him over just as I got him," said the soldier.
"Then the captain can't find any fault with me."
Not to dwell upon the particulars of Marcy's visit to Plymouth, it will be enough to say that he found Captain Burrows at the office of the provost marshal, and that he was just as sociable and friendly as he was when sitting in one of Mrs. Gray's easy-chairs examining Marcy's guns, and talking to him about the shooting on the plantation. He listened patiently and with evident satisfaction to the boy's statements, and then took him to the headquarters of the colonel commanding the post; leaving Hanson, who would have been dull indeed if he had not realized by this time that he was in the worst scrape of his life, to the care of the provost marshal. When Marcy turned to look at him as he left the marshal's office, he told himself that Hanson was in a fair way to see the inside of a Northern prison pen.
He had not talked with the colonel more than five minutes before the latter became aware that Marcy could tell him the very things he most wished to know regarding the condition of the Union people who lived outside his lines. Almost every statement he made was reduced to writing by one of the orderlies, and when the interview was ended at ten o'clock that night, Marcy received the thanks of the commandant and the assurance that the Home Guards should be scattered or captured without loss of time, and his home made a safe place for him to live. Captain Burrows offered to take good care of him and his servant if he would remain all night, but Marcy was so anxious to tell his mother the good news that he thought he had better start for home at once; so he was given the countersign, and a pass commanding all guards and patrols to permit him to enter or leave the lines at any hour of the day or night, and Captain Burrows furnished him with a generous lunch and went with him to his boat to see him off.
"Good-by, Marcy, but not for long," said he. "If I have any influence with the colonel, I shall be riding around in your neighborhood to-morrow afternoon; and when this cruel war is over, I am coming down here on purpose to go quail-shooting with you."