Within The Enemy's Lines, Oliver Optic [red scrolls of magic txt] 📗

your report in detail later, Mr. Passford, when the prize is in a better situation than now. Have you any prisoners?" asked Captain Breaker.

"Only the captain and the engineers, sir. This man with me is Dave, and he was a steward on board of the Teaser. He has given me valuable information, and I have not regarded him as a prisoner," replied the lieutenant.

"I understand," said the commander, with a smile, as he saw the yellow hue of the steward's face. "We will not regard him as a prisoner. But you may send the others on board."

Captain Folkner was in no better humor than before, and a berth in the steerage was assigned to 260 him. The other prisoners were sent on board, and Captain Breaker had ordered Christy to anchor the prize near the Bellevite.

"I don't feel as though I had quite finished my work," said Christy, as he walked towards the gangway to obey the order.

"What more is there to do?" asked the commander.

"It would take me a little time to tell the story of my trip into the bay, sir, and I think you would not understand what more is to be done until you have heard it," replied Christy.

"Then I will hear you before you anchor the Teaser," said the captain, leading the way to his cabin.

The lieutenant narrated the events of his trip across Santa Rosa Island. Captain Breaker was not a little amused at his scheme to get rid of the portion of the crew of the privateer before he captured her.

"I never suspected that you were the possessor of so much audacity, Christy," said he, when the lieutenant had put him in possession of all the facts.

"I did not know that I had more than my fair 261 share, sir, and I don't know what I have done that is at all audacious," replied Christy, very meekly.

"It is a very dark and foggy night, but I don't believe that I have another officer who would have cheek enough to pretend to be a pilot in Pensacola Bay, and to be in possession of the guard-boat at the same time."

"Captain Folkner put the idea into my head, and I think I should have been an idiot not to make use of it, considering the nature of my mission on board of the Teaser."

"It is a wonder that no one knew you were not Gilder."

"The men in the guard-boat did not expose me, and admitted by their silence that I was the person I claimed to be," replied Christy, with a twinkle of the eyes.

"Your scheme would have failed ninety-nine times out of a hundred."

"If it had failed, I had force enough to clean out the enemy on board, so that I ran no risk; but I was ordered to avoid a fight, and I did so," argued Christy.

"You were exceedingly fortunate; and the next 262 time you try such a trick, it may lead you into a rebel prison."

"It was not my fault that the ship's company of the Teaser were at issue among themselves, and I should have been an imbecile to fail to profit by it."

"I approve all you have done, Mr. Passford."

"Thank you, sir. Though I was of Captain Folkner's opinion that the sound was the best way out of the bay in the first place, I abandoned that view before I started on the expedition. I was sorry that I could not indorse Captain Folkner's opinion, and that I was obliged to take sides with his men," said Christy, chuckling.

"I understand your position perfectly. Now, what do you mean by finishing your work, Mr. Passford?" asked Captain Breaker, curiously. "We have the Teaser, and we ought to be satisfied with your brilliant success."

"I am not quite satisfied, sir."

"You ought to be."

"We put twelve men ashore at Town Point rather than have a fight with them; and I have the feeling that we have a mortgage on those men, to say nothing of thirty more at Pensacola who 263 were to join the Teaser. I told them they could get on board of their steamer from the island. I shall be sorry to disappoint them, for I suppose the whole forty or more are counting on a handsome allowance of prize money to be made for them by the Teaser. I should be sorry to disappoint them," continued Christy, chuckling all the time.

"Precisely so! I suppose you would be greatly grieved to blast their hopes, and you propose to take them on board of the steamer."

"That is the idea, sir. Taking a more patriotic view of the question, it would be a great pity to allow forty good sailors to waste their energies in the service of the Confederacy."

"Undoubtedly it would," said Captain Breaker, his brow knitting under his earnest thought. "What do you propose to do? Explain your plan fully, Mr. Passford."

"The principal of the malcontents on board of the Teaser was a man by the name of Lonley," Christy explained. "We left them at the point where the rest of the Teaser's crew were to join them. They are all anxious to get to sea in the Teaser, and I have no doubt they will come down to-night."

264 "I should think they would," the captain assented. "But they will expect to find the steamer in the sound, and not outside of the island. If the Teaser could get through the sound at all, she would not be where you intend to put her."

"I told Lonley to get upon the island, and be on the lookout for the Teaser; and as they have to come from Pensacola in a boat, it will be as easy for them to go to the island as to land at the point. Very likely they will get the Times to bring them off, or some other steamer," Christy argued.

"It is certainly very desirable to capture these men, for it will do so much to weaken the enemy; but I am afraid you are a little too audacious in some of your movements, Mr. Passford," replied Captain Breaker, with a softening smile.

"I beg you will not consider that I am asking for the command of the Teaser, Captain Breaker, if she is sent upon this duty," returned the lieutenant, somewhat set back at the prudence of the commander.

"I think I had better send Mr. Blowitt in command of the Teaser, and you shall go as his first officer," added the captain.

265 "I have no objection, even in my heart, to this arrangement," replied Christy.

"But I shall have to send the prize to New York, and I will appoint you prize-master," continued the captain, afraid that he was disappointing the ambitious young officer. "You have done exceedingly well, Christy, and I shall not fail to mention you favorably in my report; and you will write out yours as soon as possible."

Christy would not allow himself to think that he was unappreciated because an older officer was appointed to conduct the enterprise he suggested. He was ready to do his whole duty either as principal or subordinate. Mr. Blowitt was summoned from his stateroom, and forty men, including all who had taken part in the capture of the prize, were detailed to man the Teaser. The second lieutenant was one of the jolliest men on board, but he weighed nearly two hundred pounds, and he was not as active on this account in boat service as some others. He was an excellent officer, and had been in command of a steamer, though he had never before been in the navy.

At three o'clock in the morning the fasts of the Teaser were cast off, and she backed away from 266 the Bellevite. She was to proceed to a point about six miles to the eastward, which was beyond the camp of the "Pet Lambs." Here she was to look out for the Teaser's crew.

She had not made half this distance when all hands heard rapid and continued firing on Santa Rosa Island.

267 CHAPTER XXIV LIEUTENANT PASSFORD ON A MISSION

The officers on board of the Teaser could not explain the occasion of the firing on the island, though it sounded as though an engagement of some sort was in progress. It had been foggy during the preceding day, and if any movement on the part of the enemy had been indicated it could not have been seen on board of the ships off the entrance to the bay.

"I hope this business we are to do this morning will not take us long," said Mr. Blowitt. "We may be wanted on board, and I should not like to be absent from the Bellevite if she is to take part in an engagement of any kind."

"And I am sure I should not," added Christy. "I should not be surprised if the enemy made an attempt to capture Pickens; but even if they storm it in the darkness, I do not see that the ships can do anything until they are able to see what they are to do."

268 "But this affair may keep us away from the ship for a day or two," suggested the second lieutenant.

"I don't think so, sir; I believe you will be on board again before seven bells in the morning watch," replied Christy. "The ship's company of the Teaser were to be somewhere on the shores of the sound where they could be taken on board."

"But the men you landed at the point believed that the Teaser was to get out through the sound," replied Mr. Blowitt. "They took you for the pilot Gilder, and you did not tell them that you intended to run the blockade."

"Of course I did not; if I had, they would have remained on board. But the guard-boat attempted to stop us, and the artillery on the island fired into it, though it is probable that they did not hit it in the dense fog," Christy explained. "Our men may have learned from the guard-boat that we took the steamer out through the main channel."

"If they did they probably learned that the Teaser went out with the assistance of the garrison at the fort," suggested Mr. Blowitt.

"I am confident that the officer of the guard-boat 269 would have no means of knowing that fact," argued Christy. "Of course, he heard the firing in the neighborhood of the fort, and he would naturally conclude that they were firing upon the steamer to prevent her from running out."

"That may be; but, to tell you the truth, Mr. Passford, I am afraid we shall not find these men," added the second lieutenant. "From the firing we hear, I should judge that a movement of some kind is in progress, and our men may be better informed than you expect."

"Of course, they may be; but I expect to find these men at some point along the shore," replied Christy, who thought the second lieutenant was just a little obstinate in not accepting his theory in full.

The steamer continued on her course to the eastward, and nothing more passed between the two principal officers in regard to the crew from Pensacola. But Flint was quite as confident as the third lieutenant that the forty men, more or less, would be captured. The noise of the firing could no longer be heard, and then Christy suggested that the whistle be sounded as a signal to the men if they were in the vicinity.

270 The depth of water was three or four fathoms close up to this part of the island. The soundings indicated that the steamer was as near as it was prudent to go in the dense fog. Christy was sure that the privateer's crew could not have gone any farther to the eastward by this time, and the screw was stopped, while all hands made an anxious use of their ears to detect any sounds that came from the shore. But nothing could be heard at first, and Mr. Blowitt again intimated that they were engaged in a "wild-goose chase." But he had hardly uttered this cooling reflection before Beeks came aft to report that a number of pistol shots, as he thought they were, had been heard in the distance.

"Nobody can tell what they mean," said the sceptical Mr. Blowitt. "They may be a part of the affair we heard going on soon after we left the ship."

"In what direction were the shots, Beeks?" asked Christy.

"They sounded as though they were about half a mile or less to the westward of us," replied the quartermaster.

"Blow the whistle in short blasts, Beeks," 271 added Mr. Blowitt, who seemed to have gathered a little faith from the report