"I suppose not; but I have taken Luffard on his bright promise rather than for anything he has ever done, though I have seen him sail a forty-footer in a race and win the first prize. The other men I happen to think of just now have been sailors on board of my coaster. They are good men, and I can vouch for their loyalty, though not for their education. They are all petty officers."

"I have a mission for your men, to be undertaken at once, and I shall be likely to want the first three you named for important positions, if my orders do not fetter me too closely," said 109 Christy. "As the matter stands just now, Mr. Flint, it would hardly be expedient for us to capture a schooner running the blockade for the want of an officer to act as prize master."

109

"The three quartermasters I named are competent for this duty, for they are navigators, and all of them have handled a vessel."

"I am glad to hear it; we are better off than I supposed we were. My father told me that several vessels had been sent to the South short of officers, and we are no worse off than some others, though what you say makes us all right."

"I can find three officers on board who are as competent as I am, though that is not saying much," added Flint.

"I can ask no better officers, then. But to return to this letter. I have spent a considerable part of my time at Bonnydale in talking with my father. He is in the confidence of the naval department."

"He ought to be, for he gave to the navy one of its best steamers, to say the least."

"I don't want to brag of my father," suggested Christy, laughing; "I only wanted to show that he is posted. Coming to the point at once, putting 110 this and that together of what I learned on shore, and of what I have discovered on board of the Bronx, I am inclined to believe that Pawcett and Hungerford have their mission on board of this steamer in connection with the Scotian and the Arran. I will not stop now to explain why I have this idea, for I shall obtain more evidence as we proceed. At any rate, I thought I would put the ghost of a stumbling-block in the path of these conspirators; and this is the reason why I have put thirteen American seamen on board of each of the expected steamers. If my conjectures are wrong the stumbling-block will be nothing but a ghost; if I am right, it will make our men somewhat cautious as to what they do if we should be so fortunate 

 Prev. P 48/177 next