was frightened by the
spiteful emphasis he threw into his words. "They will be sorry enough,
before we are done with them, that they ever tried to break up this
government. We want peace and quiet, and we're going to have 'em, if we
have to hang every rebel in the country."

This was what we meant when we said, at the close of the last chapter,
that we should soon see whether or not Mark Goodwin had reason to be
alarmed by Tom Allison's reckless proposition. It seemed that every
contingency had been thought of and provided for by the long-headed
Union men who held secret meetings in the swamp, and that, if Allison
possessed ordinary common sense, he would not say a word to the
commanding officers at Plymouth and Roanoke regarding the situation in
and around Nashville. Marcy did not like to hear the stalwart young
sailor talk in this savage strain, so he switched him off on another
track, by saying:

"I want to ask one other question before I forget it: Were you the man
who nodded to me last night, when you and your friends came in, and
saved me from a choking?"

"I reckon so; and I was the one who got your revolvers back for you.
They didn't do you much good, did they? That little nig of yours is as
sharp as they make 'em. Didn't he tell you who we were?"

"He gave us to understand that he didn't know."

"That was all right. It shows that he can be trusted to keep his mouth
shut. But, I am afraid, if we don't quit talking, somebody will ask you
what you found in your paper that was so mighty interesting; so good-by.
Don't be alarmed on account of Beardsley and the rest. I have a notion
that the fear of punishment will make them let you and every other Union
man about here alone after this."

Aleck disappeared among the bushes, and Marcy rode on with his eyes
still fixed upon his newspaper; but he did not see a word in it. He was
thinking of the Union men, who had showed themselves brave enough to
punish their enemies almost under the noses of two strong Confederate
garrisons.

"They are a desperate lot, whoever they are," was his mental reflection,
"and I would rather have them on my side than against me. What will be
the next thing on the programme?"

There was not much work accomplished on the plantation that day, for the
excited negroes, some of whom did not know a thing about the raid of the
previous night until it was over, had too much talking to do among
themselves, and with Morris and Julius, who held