Within The Enemy's Lines Part 31

"And you will excuse me for the present if I do not answer it," added the Union lieutenant.

"Very well, Mr. Pa.s.sford; I cannot compel you to answer it, though doing so would do no harm to your cause, for I should judge that the question of the hour is settled."

"What is the question of the hour, Mr. Lonley?"

"The question is which side is in possession of the Teaser, yours or mine," replied the privateersman, still gazing out into the gloom.

"Is that question settled?" asked Christy, with interest.

"Of course I don't know, but I should think that it was. We hear no more pistol shots and no more clas.h.i.+ng of cutla.s.ses," replied Lonley, uneasily. "But I expected to hear the triumphal shout of our men when they had carried the deck of the Teaser."

"I have not heard anything like a triumphal shout," added Christy, very quietly. "It is barely possible that your men have not carried the deck of the Teaser."

"Of course, it is possible they have not; but I don't believe they have failed," replied Lonley.

The privateersman listened for a few minutes in silence. He appeared to be entirely confident that the victory must be with his men. He evidently believed that the captors of the Teaser had sent her two boats off to a distance of a mile, and thus weakened whatever force she had on board of her. He did not seem to have any idea that the party he had met in Pensacola Bay had been increased in numbers, or that the officer in command had reported to the s.h.i.+p to which they belonged. Christy realized what Lonley was thinking about, and he clearly believed that the Teaser had been left in charge of not more than a dozen or fifteen men, reduced by at least six then on boat duty.

"Help! help!" shouted a man in the water at no great distance from the sh.o.r.e.

"What does that mean?" said Lonley, springing to his feet.

"It is a call for help, and, as my hands are tied behind me, I cannot respond to it, as I would gladly do, be the man who needs it friend or enemy," replied Christy. "There is the canoe in which we came ash.o.r.e, Lieutenant Lonley, and you can use that."

The privateersman sprang into the boat, shoved it off, and pulled in the direction from which the appeal came. He disappeared in the fog in a moment; but a little later was seen again approaching the sh.o.r.e. He had not taken the sufferer into the boat, but he had clung to it. As he got upon his feet, Christy saw that there were two of them, for one helped the other up the beach.

"What does this mean?" demanded Lonley, very much excited. "Have you run away from the others?"

"No, sir; but we were beaten in the fight, our boats captured, and all hands taken prisoners except us two," replied the uninjured of the two men.

Lieutenant Lonley, whatever his views of the morality of lying to the enemy, uttered an exclamation which grated very harshly on the ears of Lieutenant Pa.s.sford. The result, as stated by the man who had swum to the sh.o.r.e, was as unwelcome as it was unexpected. He had not deemed a defeat even possible. He learned from the guard-boat that the steamer had been captured. He had spent the time after he was landed with his companions at Town Point, and organized his force for the recapture of the Teaser. The failure of the final attack was as severe upon him as the loss of his vessel had been upon Captain Folkner.

"Who are you?" demanded Lonley, when he had in some measure recovered from the shock which the failure gave him.

"I am Levick, the boatswain; and this is Lieutenant Folkner, who was wounded in the shoulder in the first of it," replied the man. "He was knocked from the rail into the water when we boarded, and he held on to an oar. When the fight was over, and we had lost it, I slipped into the water, and helped the lieutenant along on his oar, till I was about used up, and then I called for help."

"Are you much hurt, Mr. Folkner?" asked Lonley of the injured officer.

"I don't know; my shoulder feels numb, and I can't use my arm," replied Folkner. "But I can use my legs, and I think that is what we had better be doing."

"I don't understand it," protested Lonley, very much dissatisfied with the result of the action, as may well be supposed. "I was sure you would carry her deck at once."

"I was as sure as you were, Lonley; but I believe they had fifty men all ready for us. They let us leap on deck without much opposition, and then they surrounded us, and took us by surprise, for I did not suppose, after what you said, that they had a dozen men," replied the wounded lieutenant.

"I did not suppose they had even a dozen men left on board," Lonley explained, with humiliation in his tones.

"I staid in the boat till I had seen all my men on deck," continued Mr.

Folkner. "They surrounded our force, and tumbled them into the hold as though they had been pigs, slas.h.i.+ng them with their cutla.s.ses if they tried to get out. I saw the fat officer in command of the enemy; he was very active, and I leaped on deck, determined to cross weapons with him.

But he hit me in the shoulder with his cutla.s.s, and I lost my hold on the rail."

"You ought to have led your men, not followed them," said Lonley bitterly.

"That is easy enough for you to say; but I wanted to be where I could see my men," retorted the first lieutenant, of whom the second had a very mean opinion, perhaps because he got his position on account of being the captain's brother.

"Whether I did right or not, I can tell you all one thing; and that is, that we shall be prisoners if we stay here any longer. They have got our men under the hatches, and they have ordered out a boat to look for an officer they sent ash.o.r.e."

"We can do nothing here, and we may as well put ourselves in safer quarters, for we have two prisoners to lose," said Lonley. "Mr.

Pa.s.sford, I shall have to trouble you to march to the other side of the island."

"I am your prisoner, Mr. Lonley, and I must obey your orders, though I am sorry to be away from my s.h.i.+p in the hour of victory," replied Christy submissively.

But he felt that his plan had been fully carried out.

CHAPTER XXVII

A VISIT FROM COLONEL HOMER Pa.s.sFORD

With his arms securely tied behind him, Christy realized that he could make no resistance to his captors. Flint was in the same unfortunate situation, and both of them had been deprived of their revolvers. But in spite of his unpleasant surroundings, the young lieutenant felt that the balance of advantage was on the side of the Union. If the government was deprived of the services of a mids.h.i.+pman and a master's mate, a dangerous privateer had been captured, and about forty prisoners had been taken from the employ of the Confederacy. In the face of this decided gain, Christy felt that he had no right to complain.

By this time the light of day had begun to have some effect on the darkness and fog, though the gloom seemed to be hardly less. Lonley directed his two prisoners to walk side by side behind the wounded lieutenant, while he and Levick took their places in the rear. The second lieutenant of the Teaser was duly impressed by what the first had said about a probable visit to the island in search of the missing mids.h.i.+pman, and he directed Folkner to march as rapidly as he could. He took the control of the party out of the hands of his superior, and very likely he wished he had done so sooner.

Folkner, as he had before suggested, still had the use of his legs, and he certainly used them well, for he travelled like a man who was in a hurry; but both Christy and Flint were in excellent condition, though they had been on active duty all night, and they had no difficulty in keeping up with their leader.

Lonley and Levick were both armed, and they kept their weapons in readiness for immediate use, for the former recognized the enterprising character of the young officer in front of him, and knew that he would escape if he could. But Christy did not feel called to take any desperate chances in order to restore himself at once to the service of his country, and he and his companion in captivity marched along very quietly. The two armed men soon dropped several paces to the rear, so that the lieutenant could listen to the details of the action on the deck of the Teaser. The prisoners could not hear what was said, and they started a conversation on their own account.

"We are in a bad box," said Flint. "I did not expect to come out of the little end of the horn in this way."

"You must take a broader view of the situation than that," replied Christy. "The Teaser is certainly a prize of the Bellevite, with as many as forty prisoners. That is the result of our night's work, though we are counted out just now in the business of crowing over the success of our side. That is the way to look at it; and this view makes me quite satisfied with the night's work."

"I did not see it in that light, and I suppose you are right, Mr.

Pa.s.sford," replied Flint.

"And you will not lose your share of the prize-money for the Yazoo or the Teaser," added Christy, though, as the son of a millionnaire, he felt no interest at all in the spoils of war.

"What do you suppose will be done with us, sir?" asked the master's mate.

"I have not the least idea, any more than you have; but I have no doubt we shall be kept in close confinement, and I don't believe we shall live as well in our prison, wherever it may be, as we do on board of the Bellevite. But I am rather fond of johnny-cake, and I don't expect to starve on bacon."

"Don't you think it was a mistake to send us ash.o.r.e in the canoe on the part of Mr. Blowitt?" asked Flint, rather timidly.

"If it was, it was as much my mistake as it was his. But I don't think it was a mistake. I cannot say that we did not succeed in the action on the deck of the steamer because we were sent ash.o.r.e," replied Christy.

"I don't see how that can be," replied Flint.

"In the first place, Lonley wanted me to come on sh.o.r.e, and asked that I should do so. On the strength of what I said to him, he believed that our boats had been sent to the eastward, and that induced him to make the advance he did. After he had told us where to find the men, he had good reason to believe that the boats would be sent for them. We did not fall into the trap he set for us. I think it is all right as it is; but whether it is or not, it's no use to grumble about it."