"Where have you been all day and all the evening, Christy?" asked the engineer. "Your mother and sister are very much worried about you, for they have not seen you for a long time, and they fear that something has happened to you."
"Something is likely to happen to me and all the rest of us who expect to go to sea in this steamer," replied Christy, as he proceeded to inform his friend as briefly as he could of the great event of the evening.
"Well, if we are not in the enemy's country, the enemy are in ours," replied Paul. "What is to be done?"
"That is what I have been thinking of. I listened very attentively to all that passed between Major Pierson and Captain Carboneer, and I am satisfied that the latter has a considerable force somewhere on the river, and their headquarters are at the mouth of a creek five miles down the river."
"How many have they?" asked the engineer.
"I don't know; they did not mention the number in figures, but they have enough to work the ship, and even to fight her," replied Christy, very seriously.
"That means forty or fifty, at least," added Paul. "This looks like a heavy matter, and it is quite time that something was done about it."
"But what shall we do is the question," said Christy anxiously. "We have two men on board beside ourselves, and we can hardly expect to hold our own against fifty."
"Who is this Captain Carboneer?"
"I saw him at Nassau, and he looked like a man of decision and character. I don't know anything about him, but I have no doubt he is a naval officer, both from the circumstances and from what I heard. I should say that he knows what he is about. You said that my father has not yet returned from the city?"