st of the _Hattie's_
crew. Perhaps there was not so much danger of being run down at night by
some heavy vessel as there would have been a few months before, but
Marcy's nerves thrilled with apprehension when he stood holding fast to
the rail during the lonely mid-watch, and the schooner, with the spray
dashing wildly about her bows and everything drawing, was running before
a strong wind through darkness so black that her flying-jib-boom could
not be seen, and there was no light on board except the one in the
binnacle.

"I know it's dangerous and I don't like it any better than you do,"
Beardsley said to him one night. "But think of the money there is in it,
and what a fule you were for not taking out a venture when I gave you
the chance. I bought four bales apiece for the mates, and they will
pocket the money that you might have had just as well as not."

"But I want to use my seventeen hundred dollars," replied Marcy; and so
he did. He still clung to the hope that he might some day have an
opportunity to return it to the master of the _Hollins_, and that was
the reason he was unwilling to run the risk of losing it.

"Go and tell that to the marines," said Captain Beardsley impatiently.
"They'll believe anything, but I won't. You don't need it; your folks
don't, and I know it. Keep a bright lookout for lights, hold a stiff
upper lip, and I will take you safely through."

And so he did. Not only were the Federal war ships accommodating enough
to keep out of the way, but the elements were in good humor also. The
schooner had a fair wind during the whole of her perilous journey, and
in due time it wafted her into the port of Nassau. Although Marcy Gray
had never been there before, he had heard and read of New Providence as
a barren rock, with scarcely soil enough to produce a few pineapples and
oranges, and of Nassau as a place of no consequence whatever so far as
commerce was concerned. It boasted a small sponge trade, exported some
green turtles and conch-shells, and was the home of a few fisherman and
wreckers; this was all Marcy thought there was of Nassau, and
consequently his surprise was great when he found himself looking out
upon the wharves of a thriving, bustling little town. The slave-holders'
rebellion, "which brought woe and wretchedness to so many of our States,
was the wind that blew prosperity to Nassau." When President Lincoln's
proclamation, announcing the blockade of all the Confederate ports was