share of it, and obey your orders to the letter."

"Of course I have no doubt whatever in regard to your courage and your
readiness to do your whole duty, Mr. Graines," added Christy, as he led
the way to the summit of the elevation. "Now lay aside your grammar and
rhetoric, and we must be as good fellows as those bivouackers are making
themselves. We are simply sailors who have just escaped from a captured
blockade-runner."

"I don't see anything around the fire that looks like muskets," said the
engineer, as they descended from the elevation.

"I see nothing at all except the provision-basket and the bottles,"
replied Christy.

"But they may be armed for all that."

"We must take our chances. They are so busy eating and drinking that
they have not seen us yet. Perhaps we had better be a little hilarious,"
continued the lieutenant, as he began to sing, "We won't go home till
morning," in which he was joined by his companion as vigorously as the
circumstances would permit.

Singing as they went, and with a rolling gait, they approached the
revellers.

CHAPTER IV

THE REVELATIONS OF THE REVELLERS

"'We won't go home till morning,'" sang the two counterfeit revellers,
as they approached the fire of the bivouackers.

The four carousel's sprang to their feet when the first strain reached
their ears. They were not as intoxicated as they might have been, for
they were able to stand with considerable firmness on their feet, after
the frequency with which the bottle had been passed among them. They did
not do what soldiers would naturally have done at such an interruption,
grasp their muskets, and it was probable they had no muskets to grasp.

"'We won't go home till morning, till daylight doth appear,'" continued
the two officers, without halting in their march towards the revellers.

[Illustration: "The two counterfeit revellers." Page 48.]

No weapons of any kind were exhibited; but the tipplers stood as though
transfixed with astonishment or alarm where they had risen, but were
rather limp in their attitude. They evidently did not know what to make
of the interruption, and they appeared to be waiting for further
developments on the part of the intruders.

"It isn't mornin' yit, but we just emptied our bottle," said Christy,
with a swaggering and slightly reeling movement, and suiting his speech
to the occasion. "How are ye, shipmates?"

"Up to G, jolly tars," replied one of the men, with a broad