"I haven't hinted that you did; but all the same that is the proposition you came here to make me. I can see through a ladder as well as you can."
"Well, I don't see that it's any good to beat about the bush," said the ship-keeper frankly. "That's just what I came here for. We could get a reward for turning the schooner over, and you could run her up as far as Fortress Monroe, couldn't you?"
"I might do it on a pinch, but I won't."
"We'll have men enough to take her without the least trouble," urged
Tierney.
"I hope you'll not try it, but if you do, you will find me close by
Captain Beardsley's side."
"Will you fight?"
"I'll fight till I drop before I will go near the Yankees with the crew of that privateer. They would take one look at us, and then go to work and hang the whole lot."
"Why, didn't you tell the old man that they wouldn't?" exclaimed Tierney; and if Marcy could have had a view of his face, he would have seen that the ship-keeper was both astonished and frightened. "You must have changed your mind."
He certainly had, but did not feel called upon to explain why he had done so. His idea was that the faces of the schooner's crew, if Tierney and his companion ship-keeper were to be taken as specimens, would be quite enough to condemn them, and that the United States authorities would be justified in putting it out of their power to do mischief.
"I'll not have any hand in the mutiny, but will do my best to quell it if it breaks out," Marcy declared, with emphasis. "You've had your walk for nothing."