"And he did it, too, by Jove!" said the colonel, bringing his fist down with a thump upon the oaken table. "He just took his pick among the officers whom he knew, and selected an even half-dozen, besides himself, to work out his little idea. One by one they slipped inside our lines, and finally they all got together safely up here in Boston. It must have been nuts for Pender—the secret and solemn conspirators' meetings, the planning and plotting of when and how, and the stiff seasoning of danger which gave spice to the whole undertaking. He told me himself that he gladly would give ten years of his life to go through with it again.
"At that time there was a line of steamers running between this port and the 'Provinces,' and the vessels composing it were all first-class, seaworthy craft; for, as probably you know, there's pretty nasty weather to be met, off there to the east'ard. Now, of the whole lot the Halifax was the best, and our government had had an eye on her for some time, for she had in her the making of a good gun-boat, and would have come up very handily to blockading requirements. But Pender's eye was just as keen as Uncle Sam's, and Pender's motions were a great deal more sudden, and so the Halifax never attained the dignity of a place in our navy; for, when she left her dock to begin her last voyage 'Down East,' she bore upon her passenger-list seven ornamentally fictitious names, under cover of which travelled Captain John Harnden Pender, C.S.N., and the six choice spirits whom he had chosen to back him up."
"So he stole her, did he?" exclaimed Kenryck, at last beginning to take a little interest in the story.
"Stole her! no, indeed," said Colonel Elliott, in a tone of rebuke. "That's hardly a gentlemanly way to put it. In war you don't steal things: you capture them. Identity in ideas, you know, but dissimilarity in terms. Pender would be hurt if he should happen to hear his exploit classed as larceny. Well, the Halifax went churning along on her course, and until she was well outside the bay there was nothing unusual in the conduct of her passengers. But when she had a good offing, there came a transformation scene; and, all of a sudden, the men in the pilot-house and engine-room found themselves looking into the barrels of a very respectable number of navy revolvers.
"There wasn't much chance for argument. One of the engineers tried it on, but he only got shot for his pains—and the results in his case seemed to discourage the others. In short, the job was done neatly and in a thoroughly workmanlike way, and it took, all told, not much over half an hour to change the course of the Halifax from a northerly to a southerly one. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, it was."
"So they got clean away with her?" said the colonel's listener. "It hardly seems possible!"
"Yes, at first they played in luck, and got away with her right enough," said Colonel Elliott; "but their luck failed to hold, and off the coast of the Carolinas they had to go blundering plump into the blockading squadron. Sandy as Pender was, he couldn't fight his ship with Colt's revolvers, so, when he found himself in a fair way to be pocketed by two or three of our cruisers, he made the best of a bad mess, headed the poor old Halifax for the shore, sent her, head on and at full speed, upon the sands, and left her there ablaze from stem to stern. I don't know what he said during the operation, but I'd bet something that if his words were put into print they'd have to be bound in asbestos or some other non-inflammable material. Well, it was hard luck, and—Union veteran though I am—I'm damned if I can help feeling sorry that Pender didn't get away with his ship! I'd have liked to see what he'd have done with her."
The colonel reached for the tobacco-jar, filled a corn-cob, lighted it, and then went on: "After this unsuccessful experiment of his, he failed to get many more chances, for in some scrimmage or other he managed to get badly used up, and didn't get fairly into shape until the war was nearly over. When finally the Confederacy went down he was one of those who couldn't philosophically accept the result of the struggle, and in an aimless sort of way he drifted over to England. There he brought up at Liverpool, and in the course of events happened again upon old David McClintock. Well, after this he had everything his own way, for the old man completely surrendered to him. First, he went to stay at Mac's house; next, he went into business with him; and finally he made love to Bess and married her. He couldn't have wasted much time over it all, either, for it all had taken place when he showed up, here in Boston, in '71. But that was Pender all over. 'Eh, but he was a spirited lad, ye know.'"
Kenryck laughed at this application of old McClintock's words, and the colonel, who had stopped to pack more closely the tobacco in his pipe, continued: "He had come to Boston on a matter of business, and was about to look me up when he found himself put behind the bars, almost as soon as he had stepped off the New York train. How did that come about? Very simply. It seems that he had met, at some hotel in Liverpool, a Boston man who still was rabid on the war question. The fellow wasn't a veteran, but was one of those who staid at home and shouted for the Union—and they are the ones who keep the hatchet longest unburied. Somehow he managed to get into a discussion with Pender, and displayed such a lamentable lack of tact that, before he half knew it, the little ex-rebel had knocked him flat, and had repeated the operation twice running. It was a sort of argument to which he was unaccustomed, and he seemed offended at it."
"A bit put out, eh?" said Kenryck, with a grin at the matter-of-fact way in which Colonel Elliott made this latter statement.