ications, and the next from the soldiers and
loafers who were assembled upon the wharf to which she was made fast,
and who howled themselves hoarse when they caught sight of the holes in
her sails, her broken bowsprit, and her splintered rail.

"I see that blockade running has its dangers as well as privateering,"
said Beardsley's agent, as he sprang over the rail and seized the
captain's hand. "The _Hattie_ is cut up pretty badly, but the _Osprey_
was never touched. Been in a fight?"

"Well, no, not much of a fight, because we uns didn't have nothing to
fight with. But the schooner ran through a pretty tol'able heavy fire, I
tell you."

It was all over now, and Beardsley could afford to treat the matter with
indifference; but Marcy remembered that when that splinter knocked him
down, the captain was the worst frightened man in the crew. However,
Beardsley was not as badly hurt as he thought he was. When he came to
make an examination of his injuries, all he could find was a black and
blue spot on one of his shoulders that was about half as large as his
hand; but he made more fuss over that than Marcy Gray did over his
broken arm.

"Anybody shot?" continued the agent.

"Well, yes; two of us got touched a little, but not enough to growl
over. You see it was this-a-way----"

"I suppose I may go ashore now and hunt up a surgeon, may I not?" Marcy
interposed.

He thought from the way Beardsley settled himself against the rail that
he was preparing for a long talk with the agent, and that it would be a
good plan to have his own affairs settled before the captain became too
deeply interested in his narrative to listen to him. There was little to
detain him in Newbern. On the way up the river Beardsley had given him a
written leave of absence for ninety days, and a check on the bank for
his money; and all he had to do besides presenting that check was to
have his arm examined by a surgeon.

"Of course you can go," replied Beardsley. "And if I don't see you when
you come back for your dunnage, don't forget them little messages I give
you for the folks at home, nor them letters; and bear in mind that I
want you back as soon as ever you can get well."

Marcy promised to remember it all, and the captain went on to say:

"He's the bravest lad that ever stepped in shoe leather. When them
Yankees sent that shell into us and knocked him and me down and smashed
his arm all to flinders, he stood in the bow and piloted us thr