"We're off for a fact, an' unless we strike the mud 'twixt here an' the bay, we've seen the last of that lot of Britishers."
Now it was that all hands of us were ordered forward to act as look-outs, and the pungy danced along in the darkness, as if rejoicing at her escape from a peril that had well-nigh proved her ending.
It is impossible for me to set down what we said or did when it was seen that we had really escaped from as dangerous a venture as human beings ever embarked in. I dare say we acted like a party of simples, and certain it is that the older members of the crew were no less boisterous in their rejoicings than we lads.
And now there remains but little more to be said, for the homeward voyage was short.
At midnight the rain ceased falling; the clouds were partially dispersed, and we had sufficient light to enable us to navigate the little vessel without difficulty.
In four and twenty hours, without having come across an enemy, or anything to cause alarm, we were in Benedict once more, Captain Hanaford having sailed past his own home in order to land us, and well was it for all hands that we did not arrive the day previous, because not until then did the fleet under Admiral Cochrane, with the land forces under General Ross, take their final departure, leaving the little village looking as if a herd of cattle had been pastured there.
It only remains for me to say, since this story has nothing to do with my movements after we were returned from service under Commodore Barney, that in due time the government honored the commodore's guarantee, thus enabling Jerry and me to purchase a pungy much larger and better than the Avenger, and at the same time have quite a substantial sum of money to give our parents.
And all this I have written in the cuddy of the new boat, which we have named the "Joshua Barney," while Jim Freeman, Dody Wardwell, Josiah Coburn, Darius and Jerry have discussed each portion as it was set down, for we are shipmates in the oyster business, sharing the profits as well as the work, until a stranger would find it difficult to say which is the captain or which the cook.
Now that my portion of the work has come to an end, I shall copy here that which will serve to wind up the yarn in proper shape.
Referring to the close of the battle of Bladensburg, a newspaper writer says: