“Who is it? Where are you?” said Tom, looking all about him, among the groups of soldiers who were gathered on various parts of the deck, discussing the present and the future.
“Here, Tom,” replied the voice, which sounded more familiar every time he heard it.
He turned his eye in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and there, coiled up behind a heap of barrels and boxes, and concealed by a sail-cloth which had been thrown over the goods to protect them from an expected shower, he discovered Fred Pemberton.
“What in the name of creation are you doing there, Fred?” exclaimed Tom, laughing at the ludicrous attitude of the embryo secessionist.
“Hush! Don’t say a word, Tom. Sit down here where I can talk with you,” added Fred.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ll tell if you will keep quiet a moment. Is the company full?”
“What company?”
“Captain Benson’s, of course.”
“No.”