ngs that you don't want to have scattered
broadcast over the neighborhood. Our nigs all know, Marcy, that you have
been in the habit of taking Julius with you on all your trips about the
coast, and when I told him to stay behind I did it with an object. I
meant to take him and he knew it. You will need his help coming back,
and his presence will give weight to the story we are going to tell the
blockaders."

"But what will the hands say when they miss him?" inquired Marcy. "What
will mother think?"

"Dey'll all think I done took to de swamp," declared Julius, with such a
hearty guffaw that it made the boys laugh to hear it. "Dat's what I tole
'em all I going to do, and I ain't nevah coming back no mo' till Marse
Marcy come too."

"You see he played his part well. There's the chink I promised you,"
said Jack, tossing a gold coin down to the boy, who scrambled for it as
though some one was trying to get it away from him.

"But what has become of the two ship-keepers?" said Marcy. "They were
told to remain on board till we came."

"Law-zee, Marse Marcy," exclaimed Julius, with another laugh, "you jes'
oughter see dem niggahs hump demselves when I swum off to de schooner
and cotch de bob-stay. 'Oh, dere's one of dem white things,' dey holler;
but I ain't white and I knows it, and den dey run for de skiff and jump
in and go off to de sho' so quick you can't see 'em for de foam dey riz
in de watah."

"Did you scare them away?" exclaimed Marcy.

"I reckon so, sar; kase dere ain't nobody but Julius been on de schooner
or 'bout it sence dat time."

"Well, let's get to work," said Jack. "Julius, you stay below till I
tell you to come up, do you hear? If I see so much as a lock of your
wool above the combings of the hatch, I'll chuck you over for the
catfish."

A laughing response from the black boy showed just how much he feared
that the sailor would carry this threat into execution; but it kept him
below, and that was what Jack wanted. As matters stood now, Julius could
account for his absence from the plantation by saying that he had got
angry and run away because Jack ordered him to stay ashore; but he
couldn't say that with any hope of being believed if any of the settlers
along the coast saw him on board the schooner.

If Jack Gray had been so disposed, he could have taken the _Fairy Belle_
into Pamlico Sound without showing her to the Plymouth people at all,
for a small stream, called Middle River, and its trib