“Don’t you think it would be dangerous?” inquired Rodney, who had somehow got it into his head that Marcy would have to live with him as long as the war continued.
“Union people are safer in our country now than they ever were before,” answered Jack. “There’s been some shooting done up there since I wrote to you.”
“O Jack!” exclaimed Marcy. “Were Tom and Mark very badly hurt?”
“Hurt!” repeated the sailor. “Well, I reckon so. They were killed deader’n herrings, and so were Beardsley, Shelby, and Dillon. Buffum, the spy who was the means of getting you captured, was hanged, and so was mother’s old overseer, Hanson. I tell you, Rodney, the country is full of Union men, and they have been carrying things with a high hand since Marcy went away.”
“I should think they had,” said the latter, who had never been more astounded. “I am sorry to hear about Tom and Mark.”
“Well, then, why didn’t they mind their own business? If they’d had a grain of common sense they would have known that they were bound to get paid off sooner or later. They brought it on themselves, and it is a wonder to me that they were not dealt with long before.”
“Jack,” said Marcy suddenly. “You had no hand in it?”
“Not a hand. Not a finger, though there’s no telling what I might have done if Captain Denning had been there, and I had known that he triced you up for nothing. Your friends, the refugees, didn’t need any help from me. There are eighty or a hundred of them now, and they have become regular guerillas. They are well armed, and when I came away were talking of raiding Williamston and burning the jail. I think you will be safe at home, for rebel cavalry don’t scout through our section any more.”
“How soon do you expect to go?” inquired Rodney.
“Just as soon as I can fill up the Hyperion’s hold,” replied Jack. “She is due in New Orleans week after next, and I want a boatload of cotton ready for her when she pulls in to the wharf. So you can trot out your four hundred bales as soon as you get ready, and I will give you twenty-five cents greenback money for it. I was dead broke when I was here before, but I’m wealthy now,” added Jack, pulling from his pocket a roll of bills that was almost as big as his wrist. “Marcy, that’s mother’s money.”