“I would rather side with you, Miss Hazel,” he replied, at last, “a sight rather; but mulatto boys what has passed most of their time in a circus don't know much 'bout those things. I'm going to hear Mr. Harry out, and then I'll make up my mind.”
“Very well,” Hazel replied, with chilling dignity; “please go on,” she added, turning to Harry.
Harry hesitated a moment, evidently trying to recall just where he had left off.
“You were in irons on the 'Belisarius,”' suggested Josephine, whose thoughts, judging from the far-away look in her eyes, had been with the poor prisoners all the while rather than with what had been going on about her.
“Oh, yes, there we were! and fortunately with no idea of the suffering in store for us. Early the next morning we were led on deck. The 'Belisarius' had dropped anchor over yonder (pointing to the New York shore), and two boats were coming toward us, for she had signalled the 'Jersey' that she had prisoners to transfer. Oh, how our hearts sank within us as the little boats that were to carry us came nearer and nearer, and do you wonder, children, that we dreaded to board the old craft? Did you ever see a drearier-looking object, with never so much as a spar or a mast to remind you of the real use of a vessel? Even her lion figure-head had been taken away, leaving nothing but an unsightly old hulk, and yet I believe the Englishmen who were in charge of her thought the place, wretched as it was, too good for us. It seemed we were not even to be treated with the consideration due to prisoners of a war with a foreign nation. Having risen against the Mother Country, in their eyes we were simply traitors. Hopeless and despairing we were rowed over to the old prison, marched up the gangway ladder, ordered down the hatchway, and then, with the brutal exclamation, 'There, rebels! there is the cage for you,' we found ourselves prisoners in the midst of a very wretched company.”
The story was growing pretty painful, and likely to grow still more so, provided Harry told them all, as he had promised. Besides, it was so terribly real, sitting there aboard of the “Gretchen” with the old “Jersey” right before them.
By way of affording a little relief from what she felt was yet to be told, Josephine asked: “What was that canvas-covered place there in the stern used for?”
“Oh, that was a shelter put up for the guards on the quarterdeck. Just below that, and reaching from the bulkhead of the quarter-deck to the forecastle, was what they called the spar-deck, and it was there that we were allowed to take such exercise as we could. We used to walk in platoons facing the same way, and then all turn at once, so as to make the most of the little space. The gun-room, right under the quarter-deck, was where I was imprisoned, and it was a trifle more comfortable there, if you can use that word in connection with anything on the 'Jersey,' than the crowded place between decks where most of the prisoners were herded together. I had fortunately been chosen second mate on the English brig during the little while that we were masters of it, and to that lucky fact I owed my assignment to the gun-room with the other officers. But for that, I do not believe I should be here to-day to tell the story. I do not see how I could have endured any more and lived. As it was, you know, I was very ill.”
“Yes, I know,” said Hazel, laying her hand affectionately over one of Harry's and looking sympathetically into his face; “perhaps you had better not say very much about that part. Josephine and I cry very easy; don't we, Josephine?”
“Then please don't, Harry,” urged Starlight; “I'd rather have a good thrashing any time than see a girl cry,” recalling one occasion in particular, when his own misconduct had moved Hazel to tears, and she had refused for the space of one long half hour to be in any-wise comforted.