-and-after and had figures painted on her sails to
make us believe that she was a pilot boat," answered Jack, somewhat
surprised at his brother's earnestness. "But she was about four times
too big for a pilot boat. She hoisted Union colors, and when she found
that she could not decoy us within range that way, she ran up the
secession rag and cut loose with her bow-chaser; but she might as well
have saved her ammunition, for she didn't come anywhere near us."

"And neither did the rifle-shots that you fired in return come anywhere
near us," added Marcy.

"Anywhere near you?" exclaimed Jack, starting up in his turn. "What do
you mean? What do you know about it?"

"I know all about it, for I was there," replied Marcy. "It was I who ran
up those flags, and although I didn't dream that you were on the brig,
you can't imagine how delighted I was when I saw that she was bound to
give us the slip. That privateer was Captain Beardsley's schooner, and I
was aboard of her in the capacity of pilot."

Sailor Jack settled back in his chair as if to say that that was the
most astounding thing he had ever heard in his life.

"_Pilot!_" he exclaimed, at length. "Lon Beardsley doesn't need a pilot
on this coast. He has smuggled more than one cargo of cigars through
these inlets."

"I know that. But you are aware that Beardsley has been our enemy for
years. He couldn't find any way to take revenge until this war broke
out, and then he began troubling us. He knew, and he knows to-day, that
I am Union all over, and down on secession and all who favor it, and
when he offered me the pilot's berth and promised to do the fair thing
by me, he was in hopes that mother would refuse to let me go; then,
don't you see, he would have had an excuse to set our rebel neighbors
against us on the ground that we were traitors to our State."

"I always knew that Lon Beardsley was beneath contempt, but this rather
gets ahead of me," said Jack hotly.

"But it so happened that we saw through his little game. Mother never
said a word, and I shipped as pilot aboard the privateer _Osprey_"
continued Marcy. "And, Jack (here he got up, moved his chair close to
the sofa on which his brother was sitting and lowered his voice to a
whisper), I was on her when she made her first and only capture, and
upstairs in my valise I have seventeen hundred dollars in gold, my share
of the money the _Mary Hollins_ brought when she was condemned and sold
in the port of Newb