t may give chase to his schooner,"
answered Marcy. "If we are pursued, I can take the _Osprey_ through all
right; but if the man-of-war attempts to follow us, and allows herself
to be guided by the buoys, she'll stick. Oh, it's lovely business--a
brave and honorable business," exclaimed the boy, running his hands
through his hair and tumbling it up as he used to do at school when he
found anything in his books that was too hard for him. "I have the
profoundest contempt for the villain who brought me into it, and despise
myself for yielding to him."

"But, Marcy, what else could you have done? Gilford assured me it was
the only course open to you, and that by shipping as pilot on board that
privateer you have somewhat allayed suspicion."

"Mother," said Marcy, placing his arm around her neck and whispering the
words in her ear, "Captain Beardsley doesn't need a pilot any more than
he needs some one to command his piratical craft. I suspected as much
all the while, and the minute we got up to Crooked Inlet I knew it. He
can tell you more about the coast in five minutes than I could in an
hour."

"Of course, a trader----" began Mrs. Gray.

"Mother," repeated Marcy, "Lon Beardsley is not and never has been a
trader. He's a smuggler between this country and Cuba. He says himself
that he never made a voyage farther away from home than the West Indies.
He knows every inch of the coast like a book."

"Then what does he want of you?" inquired Mrs. Gray, with a look of
surprise. "Why can he not permit you to stay at home in peace, as he
knows I want you to do? Do you still think he wants to test your loyalty
to the South?"

"That's just what he is up to," replied Marcy. "He came here in the hope
that I would refuse his offer, so that he would have an excuse for
getting me into trouble."

Yes, that was one object Captain Beardsley had in view when he proposed
to make Marcy Gray pilot of the privateer, but there was another behind
it, and one that was much nearer to the smuggler's heart. As Marcy had
told his friend Wat Gifford, on the day the two held that confidential
conversation in front of the Nashville post-office, Beardsley wanted to
marry Mrs. Gray's plantation; and when he found that he must give up all
hope in that direction, like the poor apology for a man that he was, he
hit upon a plan for taking vengeance upon Marcy's mother. If she proved,
when the test was applied, to be friendly to the South and its cause,