"I remarked to one of my officers a short time ago that it must take courage, and plenty of it, to be loyal in this country; and I told the truth, did I not?" he whispered.
"One has to be more than brave to be true to his colors in this section," replied Marcy. "He has to be deceitful. I can satisfy you of that, if you think a few scraps of my personal history would be of interest to you."
Mr. Watkins answered that nothing would suit him better than to hear, from the lips of one who knew all about it, how the Union people, if there were any in that country besides his own family, managed to live among their rebel neighbors; and Marcy began and told his story, but not quite so fully as the reader knows it. He did not have time to do that, and besides he was too modest; but he easily brought his auditor to believe that the arm he carried in a sling had not been injured while its owner was fighting on the Confederate side, and also showed him that he had more reason to stand in fear of Captain Beardsley than of any other man in the settlement.
"What worries me just now is the fear that Beardsley will in some way find out that you Yankees have taken me from my mother's house to help your vessels through Croatan Sound, said Marcy, who little dreamed that Captain Beardsley had been taken from his own bed for the same purpose, and was at that very moment a prisoner in one of the boats that followed astern. The night was so dark that Marcy could not have recognized the man if he had looked straight at him; and if Beardsley had seen and recognized Marcy, when the two squads came together and got into the boats on the bank in front of his house, he had made no sign. And we may add here that the privateer captain had not been treated by his captors with the same kindness and consideration that Marcy received at the hands of Mr. Watkins. The men who surrounded his house, who followed him to his hiding-place in the cellar and dragged him out by main strength, knew that he was a rebel who hadn't the manhood to treat his prisoners with any degree of kindness, and when Beardsley frantically resisted them and yelled to his darkies to put the dogs on to the Yankees, the boatswain's mate who held him said that, if he opened his mouth again in that fashion, he would make what little light there was in the cellar shine straight through the captive's head. This threat kept Beardsley quiet, and he would not have dared to say anything to Marcy if he had had the opportunity; but he had a good deal to say about him after he got home.
"If you whip the rebels at Roanoke Island and let me go among my friends again, that man will make me no end of trouble," said Marcy, in conclusion. "He will declare that I went aboard of you of my own free will, and did all I could to help you through the Sound. It will be pretty near the truth, but all the same I don't want the story to get wind in the settlement."
"He is about the meanest two-for-a-cent outfit that I ever heard of," said Mr. Watkins, in a tone of disgust. "I am glad you told me all this, and will be sure to bear it in mind. But yours is not the only Union family in this country, I hope?"
Oh, no, Marcy said in reply. There were many who professed to be Union, and as many more who had little or nothing to say about it one way or the other. The latter were the real Union people. Some of them held secret meetings in the swamp, and had rid Marcy's mother of the presence of one of her meanest and most dangerous enemies by coming to her plantation one night and carrying away the overseer. They also captured the four men who raided his mother's house with the intention of robbing it, and had given Marcy to understand that they were keeping a watchful eye upon him and would punish any one who persecuted him or his mother. While he was telling this part of his story another faint call from a far-away sentry gave to Mr. Watkins the gratifying intelligence that Plymouth had once more been passed in safety. Why these convenient rear water-ways were not more closely guarded by the Plymouth garrison it is hard to tell. Perhaps it was because they thought the Yankees would not venture to penetrate so far inland in small boats. They learned better when Cushing sunk the Albemarle.
There was little current in the river to help the cutters on their journey, but the ebb tide presently came to their assistance, and under its influence they went on their way with increased speed; still it was almost daylight when Mr. Watkins's cutter and the two immediately astern of it drew up to the gangway on the starboard quarter of Captain Benton's vessel. The executive officer and Marcy stepped first upon the grating, and Beardsley and the acting ensign who commanded the second cutter followed them up the side to the deck, where Captain Benton was waiting to receive them.
"I am aboard, sir," said Mr. Watkins, placing his hand to his cap, "and have the honor to report that your orders have been carried out to the letter. These are the pilots I was instructed to bring."
"Very good, sir," replied the captain.