were compelled to
pretend that they were, in order to avoid being driven from the country.
It was a bad state of affairs altogether, but Marcy knew he would have
to get used to it. He slept but little that night, and it was a great
relief to him when the train stopped at Boydtown, which was located on a
navigable arm of Pamlico Sound, and was as far as the railroad went. As
Marcy lived near Albemarle Sound, there was still a ride of thirty-five
miles before him, but that would be taken in his mother's carriage,
provided any of the negroes had been over to Nashville and got the
dispatch he sent from Raleigh the day before. All doubts on this point
were removed when the train drew up at the station, for the first person
he saw on the platform was Morris, the coachman, who greeted him
heartily as he stepped from the car. This faithful old slave was Marcy's
friend and mentor, and Sailor Jack's as well; and the boy Julius, who
had come with the spring wagon to bring home the trunk, was their
playmate. Julius was just about Marcy's age. They had hunted and fished
together, sailed their boats in the same mudhole, and had many a fight
over their marbles, in which, we are sorry to say, Marcy did not always
come out first best.

"There's my check, Julius," said Marcy, handing it over, and slipping a
piece of money into the black boy's palm at the same time. "Shut the
carriage door, Morris. I am going to ride on the box so that I can talk
to you. I want you to tell me everything that's happened since I have
been away. You are a good rebel, of course."

"Now, Marse Marcy, you know a heap better'n that," replied Morris, who
plumed himself on being the "properest talking colored gentleman on the
plantation." "Git up, heah," he shouted to his horses. "Don't you know
that the long-lost prodigal son has come back? You don't want to say too
much around heah. Everything in town got ears. Wait till we git in the
country and then you can talk. Yes, sar, your mother is well; quite
well. But she's powerful sorry."

"I know she is. Do you hear anything from Jack?"

"Not the first word. He's on the ship _Sabine_, which done sailed for
some place, but I dunno where."

"I wish he was safe at home," said Marcy. "Somehow I feel uneasy about
him."

He would have felt more than simply uneasy if he could have looked far
enough into the future to see that Jack's ship was destined to be one of
the first of a large number of defenseless vessels t