"Oh, no. He came around all right in a few minutes," answered Aleck; and then, as if to show Marcy that he did not intend to say more on that subject, he hastened to add, "My object in stopping you was to inquire if you are satisfied with the way I have kept the promise I made Mr. Jack. I told him I would always stand his friend, and yours. You don't often get letters from him, I suppose?"
"Not often," replied Marcy, with a smile. "The mail does not run regularly between our house and the Yankee fleet."
"No, I reckon not; but if you get a chance to write to him, tell him what I have told you."
"Look here, Aleck," said Marcy suddenly. "Do the members of your band ever hang about the post-office? I know I have seen you there a few times."
"Of course; and you will, no doubt, see me there again. We have to go among people to keep suspicion away from us."
"That's what I thought," continued Marcy. "Now, are you not afraid that some one will bring soldiers there to make prisoners of you?"
"No, I don't think they will," said Aleck indifferently. "If the soldiers should come, there are men in that town who would run so fast to meet and send them back, that you couldn't see them for the mud they would kick up in the road."
"You mean that they would not permit the soldiers to molest you?"
"They wouldn't, if they could help it, for they know their town would be destroyed if they did," replied Aleck; and Marcy was frightened by the spiteful emphasis he threw into his words. "They will be sorry enough, before we are done with them, that they ever tried to break up this government. We want peace and quiet, and we're going to have 'em, if we have to hang every rebel in the country."
This was what we meant when we said, at the close of the last chapter, that we should soon see whether or not Mark Goodwin had reason to be alarmed by Tom Allison's reckless proposition. It seemed that every contingency had been thought of and provided for by the long-headed Union men who held secret meetings in the swamp, and that, if Allison possessed ordinary common sense, he would not say a word to the commanding officers at Plymouth and Roanoke regarding the situation in and around Nashville. Marcy did not like to hear the stalwart young sailor talk in this savage strain, so he switched him off on another track, by saying: