had been so prompt to
espouse."

The rest of that day and all the succeeding one were consumed in getting
the provisions, ammunition, and arms aboard, mounting the howitzers, and
stationing the crew. When the work was ended late at night, Marcy
tumbled into his bunk between decks, heartily disgusted with the life he
was leading. The schooner was to run out with the last of the ebb tide
in the morning, so as to catch the flood tide, which would help her up
to Crooked Inlet.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCLUSION.

It took them the best part of the next day to run to their destination,
and the whole of the following one to find and buoy the channel, which
changed more or less with every storm that swept the coast. Marcy
thought it a foolhardy piece of business to depend upon that treacherous
inlet for a way of escape in case the schooner was discovered and
pursued by a ship of war, and told Captain Beardsley so; but the latter
simply smiled, referred Marcy to the work he had done that day, and
reminded him that there were eight feet of water in the deepest part of
the channel, and that the privateer, fully loaded, drew but little more
than six.

"There aint a sea-going vessel in the Yankee navy that can run on six
foot of water, and I know it," chuckled Beardsley. "If one of 'em gets
after us we'll skim through easy as falling off a log, but she'll stick,
'specially if she runs 'cording to them buoys you set out." This was the
"work" to which the captain referred. At that time the rule was for all
ship-masters to leave black buoys to starboard and the red ones to port;
or, to put it in English, they were to pass to the left of the black
buoys, and to the right of red ones, or run the risk of getting aground
and losing their insurance, in case their ships went to pieces. But
Marcy, acting under the orders of Captain Beardsley (who, now that he
was fairly afloat, began to show that he was much more of a sailor than
the folks around home thought he was), had changed this order of things
by anchoring the red buoys on the right of the channel going out, and
the black ones on the left. Of course it was necessary for the pilot to
bear this in mind if he were called upon to take the privateer through
there in a hurry, or on a dark night when the wind was blowing strongly.
To a landsman this may seem like a very small thing, but it was enough
to insure the destruction of