essel."

"Then he will have to come back here to do it, for there is no ironclad
building at Newbern, and I don't see why he did not ship with Commodore
Lynch in the first place," said Captain Porter. "But doubtless he wanted
to serve on deep water. Now to business. We want negroes to work on the
fortifications on and about the Island, and Captain Beardsley sent us
here to get some. He said he thought you might spare, say fifty or
more."

Marcy was suspicious of everything Beardsley said and did, and wondered
if this was a new move on the man's part to bring him and his mother
into trouble with the Confederate authorities. If it was a trap Marcy
did not fall into it.

"You can call on my mother for double that number," said he without an
instant's hesitation. "We can't spare them, of course, for there's work
enough to be done on the place; but all the same you will have to get
them."

"All right," answered the captain, pulling out his notebook. "Send them
down to Plymouth as soon as you can and in any way you please, and we
will furnish them with transportation and take care of them after that.
By the way, it's rather queer about that overseer of yours. Where do you
imagine he is now?"

If Marcy had not been fully on the alert this question would have struck
him dumb; but the captain, whose suspicions had not been in the least
aroused, and who believed Marcy and his mother to be as good
Confederates as he was himself, had unwittingly paved the way for it by
talking so freely about Captain Beardsley.

"It was a very strange as well as a most alarming proceeding," admitted
Mrs. Gray, who thought it time for her to take part in the conversation.
"I have not yet fully recovered from the fright it gave me," she added,
with a smile, "and we have not the faintest idea where Hanson is now."

"What was Hanson anyhow? Which side was he on?"

"I don't know," replied Marcy. "Sometimes he claimed to be one thing,
and then he claimed to be another."

"Captain Beardsley thinks he was in favor of the South."

"That proves my words, for he assured me that he was a Union man, and
wanted to know if I was going to discharge him on account of his
principles. I told him I was not, and added that if Shelby and Dillon
and their friends wanted him driven from the place they could come up
and do the work themselves, for I would have no hand in it. I desire to
live in peace with all my neighbors."

"Oh, you can't do that, and it's n