"I want to ask one other question before I forget it: Were you the man who nodded to me last night, when you and your friends came in, and saved me from a choking?"
"I reckon so; and I was the one who got your revolvers back for you. They didn't do you much good, did they? That little nig of yours is as sharp as they make 'em. Didn't he tell you who we were?"
"He gave us to understand that he didn't know."
"That was all right. It shows that he can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. But, I am afraid, if we don't quit talking, somebody will ask you what you found in your paper that was so mighty interesting; so good-by. Don't be alarmed on account of Beardsley and the rest. I have a notion that the fear of punishment will make them let you and every other Union man about here alone after this."
Aleck disappeared among the bushes, and Marcy rode on with his eyes still fixed upon his newspaper; but he did not see a word in it. He was thinking of the Union men, who had showed themselves brave enough to punish their enemies almost under the noses of two strong Confederate garrisons.
"They are a desperate lot, whoever they are," was his mental reflection, "and I would rather have them on my side than against me. What will be the next thing on the programme?"
There was not much work accomplished on the plantation that day, for the excited negroes, some of whom did not know a thing about the raid of the previous night until it was over, had too much talking to do among themselves, and with Morris and Julius, who held their heads high and threw on airs because they had been prominent actors in the thrilling scenes that took place in Mrs. Gray's sitting-room. Julius thought himself of so much consequence that it was all Marcy could do to persuade him to give the dead Bose a decent burial, and then he was obliged to go with him to see that the task was well done. But he was not as impatient with the black boy as he would have been if Aleck Webster had not spoken so well of him. They had visitors, too; and Marcy knew that their object in coming was not to sympathize with his mother and denounce the "outrage" as they called it, but to gain her good will if they could. As Marcy bluntly expressed it—"They would not come near us if they thought we were friendless and helpless, but they know we are not, and so they want to get on our blind side." They fairly "gushed" over the Confederate flag that was hung upon the wall of the sitting-room, but when they went away they told one another that that banner did not express Mrs. Gray's honest sentiments, and that it would not protect her or her property for one minute if the Richmond authorities would only yield to the importunities of General Wise, and send a strong force to occupy Roanoke Island and the surrounding country. If that time ever came, the general's attention should be called to the fact that one of the sons of that house was a sailor in the Yankee navy.
After another almost sleepless night Marcy Gray rode again to the post-office, to find there the same talkative, indignant, do-nothing crowd he had long been accustomed to meet at mail time. This morning, if such a thing were possible, they were more excited and angry than they had been the day before; but they did not fail to meet Marcy at the hitching-rack, or to talk to him as though they looked upon him as one of themselves. He noticed that they all held papers in their hands.
"This thing is going to be stopped now, I bet you," said Mark Goodwin, who was the first to speak.
"Do you mean the war?" inquired Marcy. "If you do, I am heartily glad to hear the news."