"And you would be the first to grab a rope and haul us up, I suppose? Look here, James, Caleb has got back now——"
"Oh! Did you find him and turn him loose? Then he will not have to go to New York to pay his fine?"
"Not by a long shot. I found him locked in the brig and let him out."
This news was more than James could stand. He pulled off his hat, dug his fingers into his head and acted altogether like a boy who was almost ready to go insane.
"And if you are wise you and Emerson Miller will stay close about the house," said Enoch, shifting his rifle to his other shoulder. "The first time he catches you on the street he will have his pay for that. So you want to watch out."
Enoch walked on toward his home and James went into the house so bewildered that he hardly knew which end he stood on. He found his father in the dining-room, pacing up and down the floor with his hands behind his back, but that terrible scowl that had come to his face when he first heard that James had been whipped by a rebel, was not there. His face was pale and his hands trembled.
"Father," whispered James, as though he hardly knew how to communicate to him the news he had just heard, "the dog is dead. Captain Moore has been killed and the rebels have taken the schooner."
His father fairly gasped for breath. He raised his hands above his head as if to say that he did not want to hear any more, and then groped his way to a lounge and sank down upon it.
"I have just seen Enoch out there and he told me all about it," continued James. "The firing that we heard did not hurt the sloop at all. And the worst of it is, Caleb has been turned loose and now I have got to stay about the house."
"Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" groaned Mr. Howard.