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

of the quartermaster.

The order was obeyed, and Beeks again reported that pistol shots had been heard from the westward. The third lieutenant was in a hurry to have the business finished, for he felt confident that the Bellevite would soon be engaged in an affair of more importance than picking up a couple of score of prisoners. He ordered the steamer to come about, and move to the westward; but after she had been under way about five minutes, he rang to stop her, and then sounded the whistles again. Several pistol shots responded to this signal. Again he started the screw, and pointed the bow of the Teaser squarely to the north.

The steamer moved very slowly, and two men sounded all the time till they reported "by the mark two," when there could not have been more than three feet of water under the keel of the vessel. The screw was stopped and backed so that she might not run upon any shoal place ahead of her, and the officers waited with interest and anxiety for further action on the part of the party on shore. By this time no one doubted that there were men on this part of the island; but whether 272 they were the crew of the privateer or not was yet to be proved.

"Steamer, ahoy!" shouted some one on the shore.

"On the island!" replied Christy, as he was instructed to do by his superior.

"What steamer is that?" demanded the speaker on the island.

Whoever he was, he could not help knowing that a steamer was there, for the engineer had begun to blow off steam as soon as the screw stopped, though neither party could see the other in the fog and darkness.

"The Teaser," replied Christy. "Who are you?"

"We are the ship's company of the Teaser, and we want to get on board," replied the speaker. "Is Captain Folkner on board?"

"He is on board—of the Bellevite," the third lieutenant would have finished the sentence if he had told the whole truth, for he uttered only the first part of the sentence.

"All right. The first and second lieutenants are with us. Is Gilder on board?"

"He is; and he wants to get back to the other 273 side of the inland," answered Christy, who considered it his duty to make his replies as suitable to the occasion as possible. "Who is speaking?"

"Lieutenant Lonley," replied the man; and Christy knew him, though he did not know his rank before. "He wants to see Gilder before he goes on board. Tell him to come on shore in his canoe."

"What is that for?" demanded Christy, rather surprised at the unexpected request.

"I want to see him on particular business; I have a message for him, which I cannot deliver in presence of any other person," replied Lonley.

"All right; you shall see him soon," answered Christy.

"Get out the boats to take us on board," continued Lonley. "Send them about a mile to the eastward, where we have left our bags."

"All right," repeated Christy.

But he said what he did not believe, for everything did not look right to him. He could not understand why the bags of the men should be a mile to the eastward. He could not imagine what business Lonley could have with Gilder or his representative; 274 and if he had any, why it should be necessary to meet him on the island.

"Of course you don't expect me to carry on the programme that fellow has marked out," said Mr. Blowitt. "I don't quite like the looks of the things that we can't see, Mr. Passford."

"Neither do I, Mr. Blowitt," replied the third lieutenant frankly.

"I shall not send a boat from the steamer till I understand this matter a great deal better than I do now, and especially I shall not send the boats a mile to the eastward," added the second lieutenant.

"Of course it is possible that my plan has miscarried already," added Christy.

"I shall do everything I can to carry out your plan, as I am instructed to do by the captain; but I have the feeling, in spite of myself, that we are crawling into a hornet's nest," added Mr. Blowitt, with some anxiety in his tones. "You will call all hands quietly, and be ready to repel boarders. It is well to be prepared for whatever may come. The firing at the west end of the island indicated that something was going on, and perhaps these men on the shore know about it."

275 Christy obeyed the order promptly, and the next minute, every seaman on board was ready with his cutlass and revolver to meet an attack. But no sound came from the shore just then, and the officers were in a state of uncertainty in regard to the situation which allowed them to do nothing. They waited for half an hour, when the leadsman reported that the water was shoaling, which indicated that the Teaser was drifting towards the island.

"On board the Teaser!" shouted Lonley, so distinctly that he could hardly have been more than three hundred feet from the steamer.

"On shore," replied Christy, prompted by Mr. Blowitt.

"I am waiting for Gilder! Why don't he come on shore?" shouted Lonley, his impatience apparent in his tones.

"Where are all the men?" demanded Christy, as requested by the second lieutenant.

"They have gone a mile to the eastward where they left their bags."

"We will run down in the steamer for them," added Mr. Blowitt, talking through Christy.

"Don't do that!" protested the speaker on 276 shore. "There is a Yankee steamer off in that direction. We heard her steam an hour ago."

"All right!" replied Christy.

"That settles the matter in my mind," said Mr. Blowitt. "They are trying to play what they call a Yankee trick upon us. When we send our boats to the eastward, we shall send them into a trap. If the boats are to bring off forty men, they will expect them to go with only men enough to pull the oars; and when they get possession of them, they expect to retake the Teaser."

"I think you are right, Mr. Blowitt," replied Christy, who began to believe that his scheme was rapidly approaching a failure, though he did not give it up just yet.

"This Lonley is still on the shore near us," said Mr. Blowitt. "I should very much like to know what has been going on to-night on the island, and it may be that he knows all about it. As you are the representative of Gilder, Mr. Passford, you may take the canoe that is astern, and have a talk with Lonley at close quarters, if you don't object."

"I should have proposed it myself if I had not feared that the idea would be charged to my 277 audacity," replied Christy. "I will take only Flint with me, as he was with me before."

The canoe was brought up to the gangway, and Flint took his place at the oars. Mr. Blowitt charged the young officer in the most serious manner not to run any risks, and the boat was shoved off. It required but a few strokes of the oars to bring it into shoal water by the beach. Only a single man could be seen on the shore, and this one must be Lonley. There seemed to be no risk, and Christy landed.

278 CHAPTER XXV CHRISTY BECOMES A VICTIM

Everything was perfectly still on the island, and only a single man was in sight; but Christy put his hand upon his revolver as he went on shore. Though he had never been a fighting young man, he had the impression that he should not tamely submit to the assault of an enemy, or run away from any single man that stood up in front of him. He had always been prudent, even while he had been daring, and he hardly needed the solemn admonition of the second lieutenant to be extremely cautious.

"Is that you, Captain Gilder?" asked the man on the shore, who stood a little way from the waterside.

"Yes; and I take it for granted that you are Lonley," replied Christy, advancing towards the other. "You have done all the talking this night, and I ought to know you."

279 "All the talking except what you have done, and I ought to know you," replied Lonley. "I am Lieutenant Lonley, of the Teaser, and our men are all ready to go on board."

"And Captain Folkner is all ready to have them go on board," returned Christy, who had no doubt of the truth of what he said, though he understood that he was telling a "story" all the same.

"I have no doubt he is. But I don't quite understand how you happen to be on this side of the island, and so far to the westward at this time in the morning. We expected to find the Teaser burrowing through the sound, and we had about made up our minds to take possession of her and run the blockade, as other Christians do. We did not believe she would get through the sound in a week, if she ever did."

"I succeeded in persuading Captain Folkner that he had better come out by the main channel; and that is the way we did come out, and that explains how we happen to be here at this time in the morning," replied Christy, very cheerfully.

"You must have very strong powers of persuasion, Captain Gilder," said Lonley, laughing.

"I have in a case such as this was," added the 280 lieutenant, with a chuckle, as he thought of the particular kind of persuasion he had used upon the captain of the privateer.

"I would give a good deal if I had just such powers, for they are sometimes of very great service to an officer."

"You are quite right, Mr. Lonley. I suppose you are the first lieutenant of the Teaser."

"No, I am not; kissing goes by favor, and the captain's brother is the first; and he is no more fit for his position than the captain is for his duty. I was in hope that the government would take possession of the steamer, and send her to sea properly officered," added Lonley, very good-naturedly.

"Good officers are quite necessary in the service," suggested Christy. "I have no doubt you will fill the bill, and be all that could be possibly desired."

"Thank you, Captain Gilder. Did you have any trouble in getting out of the bay?"

"No, none at all. By the way, Mr. Lonley, we have been hearing firing at the west end of the island to-night. Do you know what it means?"

"The first thing was to clean out that regiment 281 of Zouaves; and I have no doubt that has been done before now; and our boys may get a hack at Pickens. A big force was landed in the fog, and the Yankees will not stay on this island much longer," replied Lonley.

His information was entirely correct, though his prediction was not equally reliable.

"I was sure there was fighting going on over there," added Christy. "You seem to be all alone, Mr. Lonley. Where are all your men?"

"I told you before you came ashore that I had sent them all over to the place where they had left their bags, about a mile to the eastward of us. I suppose Captain Folkner has sent the boats over there for them before this time?"

"He was inclined to run over in the steamer," added Christy.

"I hope he did not do that," said the privateersman, with a good deal more energy than the other thought the occasion warranted. "I warned you that there was a Yankee gunboat over that way."

"The Teaser has not gone over that way," replied Christy.

"If she has, she will be gobbled up by that gunboat, and all my men with her."

282 "I persuaded Captain Folkner not to do it," added the Bellevite's officer, very quietly.

"He ought to have done just what I asked him to do; and that was to send his boats over to the place named for the men."

"And I persuaded him to do that also," continued Christy, as unblushingly as though he had not been strictly in the habit of telling the truth all his lifetime.

"Good for you, Captain Gilder!" exclaimed Lonley, grasping the hand of his companion as though he had been his brother. "You beat all the men I ever knew on power of persuasion; and when I get the command of the Teaser, as I expect to have before this year ends, I shall want you to serve as my first lieutenant."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Lonley; you are very kind; and if I ever go into the privateering