AIN BEARDSLEY "PERTESTS."]

"Take 'em off! In the name and by the authority of the Confederate
States of Ameriky I pertest agin this outrage!" yelled Beardsley, hardly
knowing what he said in his excitement. "Marcy Gray, aint I always stood
your friend and your mother's too, and are you going to keep as dumb as
an oyster while this indignity is being put upon your old cap'n? Take
the dog-gone things off, I say! I aint in the service, and you aint got
no right to slap me in irons when I aint done the first thing agin you
or your laws, either. No, I won't keep still!" roared the captain,
struggling furiously in the grasp of the sailors, who were guiding him
with no very gentle hands toward the gangway that led down to the brig.
"I'll pertest and fight as long as I have breath or strength left in me;
and when we have gained our independence, Cap'n Benton, I'll make it my
business to see that you suffer for this."

From the bottom of his heart Marcy Gray pitied the frightened,
half-crazy man who was being hurried below, but he did not draw
attention to himself by interceding in his behalf because he knew it
would do no good. Beardsley was being treated just as he had treated
Captain Benton's men; but there was no mob on the Union gunboat to whoop
and yell at him as the Newbern mob had whooped and yelled at his
prisoners when they were being taken to jail. Beardsley continued to
struggle and shout until his head disappeared below the combings of the
main-hatch, and then the racket suddenly ceased. He had not been gagged,
as Marcy feared, but he had been told that he would be if he didn't keep
still, and the threat silenced him.

Quiet having been restored Mr. Watkins said to his commander, waving his
hand in Marcy's direction:

"This young man, sir, was also on board the _Osprey_, when she made a
prize of your schooner. I think he has something to say that will
interest you. His name is Marcy Gray."

"Why, Gray was mentioned to me as a Union man," said the captain.

"And so I am," replied Marcy. "But when one is surrounded by enemies he
can't always do as he likes, and I sailed on that privateer because I
couldn't help it. If you will be kind enough to look into this valise
you will see something that will prove my words."

"He has seventeen hundred dollars in that grip, which he says belongs to
you, sir," Mr. Watkins whispered in the ear of his superior. "It is the
money he received when the _Hollins_ was condemned a