“All the shipping has dropped down the river,” cried he. “That can only mean one thing! Colonel Moultrie is about to attack——”
“Belay there, nevvy,” growled a rough voice, almost in his ear. “Not quite so slack with the jaw tackle.”
“Uncle Dick,” exclaimed Tom, in surprise.
“Yes, it’s the old sea-horse,” responded the owner of the voice, from above them on the wharf.
“You frightened me,” laughed Tom, as he climbed up over the wharf log.
“My frightening you, nevvy,” said the other, “will be nothing to the scare you’ll get if any of Governor Campbell’s spying swabs heard what you were just now going to say.”
Uncle Dick, or as the world knew him, Capt. Richard Deering of the schooner Defence, nodded in a friendly fashion to Cole, who grinned back, from his seat in the bow of the skiff. The captain of the Defence was a sturdy-looking man of about fifty, with his long, gray hair gathered in a cue, sailor-fashion; his weather-tanned face was smoothly shaven; he wore a round, glazed hat, a short pilot coat with metal buttons and long leather boots.
“What is going on, Uncle Dick?” asked Tom, seating himself at the old salt’s side. “I heard a drum beat while we were sailing in the shallows below the town and noticed the Cherokee and the Tamar standing up and down, with all hands ready.”
Captain Deering spat carefully over the wharf log into the water; and then looked up and down the river.
“There is going to be something happen on this river to-night,” said he, “that in the days to come they’ll write in their history books. See all them boats pulled up on the sand, above there?”