end her to the bottom.

"Schooner ahoy!" came the hail.

"On board the steamer," answered Captain Beardsley, who had been allowed
a little leisure in which to recover his wits and courage.

"What schooner is that?"

"The _Hattie_ of New York," shouted Beardsley. "Homeward bound from
Havana with a cargo of sugar. Who are you?"

"The United States supply steamer _Adelaide._ What are you doing a
hundred miles eastward of your course, and showing no lights?" asked the
voice; and Marcy fully expected that the next words would be, "I'll send
a boat aboard of you."

"I'm afraid of privateers," was Beardsley's response. "I heered there
was some afloat, and I can't afford to fall in with any of 'em, kase
everything I've got on 'arth is this schooner. If I lose her I'm
teetotally ruined."

"Well, then, why don't you hold in toward Hatteras, where you will be
safe? There's a big fleet in there, and in a few days there'll be
more."

"You don't tell me! Much obleeged for the information! I will put that
way as fast as this breeze will take me. Seen anything suspicious? No?
Then good-by and farewell."

Beardsley shouted out some orders, the schooner filled away so as to
pass under the steamer's stern, and to Marcy's unbounded astonishment
she was permitted to go in peace. The stranger's gong sounded again, and
she also went on her way. There was scarcely a word spoken above a
whisper until her lights had disappeared; then the schooner's own
lanterns were hauled down, her head was turned to the point of the
compass toward which it had been directed when the steamer was first
discovered, and Captain Beardsley was himself again.

"By gum!" said he, striding up and down the deck, pausing now and then
to go through the undignified performance of shipping his mates on the
back. "_By_ gum, I done it, didn't I! What sort of a Yankee do you
reckon I'd make, Marcy? I talked just like one--through the nose, you
know. Pretty good acting; don't you think so?"

"It was good enough to save the schooner," replied Marcy.

"And that was what I meant to do if I could. I wouldn't have give a
dollar for my chances of getting shet of that steamer till she began to
back away to keep from running us down, and then something told me that
I'd be all right if I put a bold face on the matter. And that's what I
done. Oh, I'm a sharp one, and it takes a better man than a Yankee to
get ahead of me. I was really much obliged to him for telling me of