Osprey_ to be narrated at some future
time.

"I am glad the _Hattie_ got through the blockade all right seeing that
you were aboard of her," said Jack, when Marcy brought his story to a
close. "But if Uncle Sam doesn't do something to break up
blockade-running, he'll have a war on his hands that will make him open
his eyes. It will not take me five minutes to tell my story. I was a
prisoner not more than twelve hours, and during that time not the first
exciting thing happened. If it hadn't been for the fact that there was a
strange officer in command of the brig, and that our old man was walking
around with his hands in his pockets, saying nothing, we wouldn't have
known that we were prisoners at all."

With this introduction the returned sailor settled into an easy position
among the sofa pillows and related his experience very nearly as
follows, with this exception: He quite forgot to say that he was the one
who first conceived the idea of taking the _Sabine_ out of the hands of
the prize crew that Semmes had placed aboard of her, and that, if it had
not been for his courage and prompt action, the brig would either have
been sold for the benefit of the Confederate Government, or burned in
the Caribbean Sea after her neutral cargo had been put ashore.

It happened on the morning of July 4, and the _Sabine_, in company with
the brig _Herndon_, was sailing along the southern coast of Cuba, having
recently left the port of Trinidad-de-Cuba with a cargo of sugar and
molasses, which was consigned to an English port in the Island of
Jamaica. Although there was some sea on and rain squalls were frequent,
there was but little breeze, and consequently the _Sabine_ could not
have run into neutral waters even if second mate Jack Gray, who had
charge of the deck, had known that the steamer that was bearing down
upon her was the freebooter, _Sumter_.

"What do you mean by neutral waters?" Marcy wanted to know.

"Why, every country that owns a strip of seacoast owns also the waters
for three miles out," replied Jack. "And inside of that marine league,
as it is called, the cruisers of one nation mustn't trouble the ships of
another with which it happens to be at war. For example, if two armed
vessels belonging to two different nations who are at loggerheads,
happen to sail into the same neutral port, they can't fight there, but
must go outside; and if one of them runs out, the other must wait
twenty-four hours before following h