"Do you think there will be any more fighting, captain?" asked Mrs. Gray anxiously.
"Yes, madam, I do. I am not one of those who believe that the North is going to be easily whipped. They do not belong to our race, I am glad to say, but they are a hardy, enduring people, and although they don't know how to fight they think they do, and they are going to give us a struggle. We must hold fast to Roanoke Island, for the possession of that important point would give the enemy a chance to operate in the rear of Norfolk. We expect to have a brush with them soon, and when it comes, we intend to make another Bull Run affair of it. I wish we could remain longer, but our duties call us away. I trust you will have those negroes down to us to-morrow."
Mrs. Gray replied that they should be sent without loss of time, and Marcy went out to tell Julius to bring up the horses. When he came back and followed the officers to the front door, he inquired if they had heard what Beardsley's reason was for quitting a profitable business and coming home so unexpectedly.
"Oh, yes; Beardsley told us all about it. He said he was afraid of the Yankees, and he didn't act as though he was ashamed to confess it. Their cruisers are getting so thick along the coast that a sailing vessel stands no chance. I asked him if he was going to enlist and he thought not. He wants to do his fighting on the water."
"He wants to do his fighting with his mouth," was what Marcy said to himself. "He will neither enlist nor ship; but he will stay at home and try by all the mean arts that he is master of to keep mother and me in trouble." Then aloud he said: "I am glad he came home, for it lets me out of the service. I have no desire to face any more steam launches that carry howitzers."
"I suppose not," said the captain, giving Marcy's hand a hearty farewell shake. "The more I see of those people the less I like to face them in battle. I hope you will soon have the use of your arm again, and that I shall see you by my side fighting for the glorious cause of Southern independence. Good-by."
The two officers mounted and rode away, Marcy remained upon the gallery long enough to wave his hand to them as they passed through the gate, and then he went into the house and to the room in which he had left his mother.
"What did I tell you?" were the first words he uttered. "Didn't I say that Beardsley would not let harm come to us if he could help it? I tell you, mother, he is afraid of the men who carried Hanson away and ordered him to come home."
"Well, then, is he not aware that we are looking to those same men for protection?" inquired Mrs. Gray.
"If he doesn't know it he suspects it pretty strongly. Aleck Webster told me that Beardsley had been warned to cease persecuting Union people in this settlement. That includes you and me, for the minute Beardsley saw and recognized my schooner in Crooked Inlet, that very minute he knew where to place us. He knows where Jack is now as well as we know it ourselves."