He would never forgive her--never! she thought miserably. He was under arrest now. What was that word she had caught as she ran toward them? Coward! They would kill him perhaps. She had lost all--love, the ship, everything! Lacy, too, was gone. He had taken the boat out in Sempland's place. Why had she not thought of that possibility? And he had loved her, and he would never come back. With a misery akin to Sempland's she heard the bombardment which proclaimed that something had happened. Had the flagship been blown up? Nothing was left to her. She would go to the general and tell the truth in the morning, and then--he would be free. They could punish her and she could die. Well, death would be welcome. [Illustration: "Poor little Fanny Glen ... she had lost on every hand."] Poor little Fanny Glen! She had played, and played the fool exceedingly--and she had lost on every hand! CHAPTER X A STUBBORN PROPOSITION The general, who was always on the alert, ordinarily began his work with the sun, and rarely did he stop with the setting of it, either. The next morning, therefore, he was at his headquarters at an unusually early hour. Fortune had favored him in that one of the harbor patrol boats, making a daring reconnaissance about midnight, to discover if possible what had happened to the _David_, had captured a whale boat from one of the Union ships, bound on a similar errand, and had brought her crew to the city. By questioning them Beauregard learned of the blowing up of the _Housatonic_, and the almost certain loss of the torpedo boat. He was sorry that he missed the _Wabash_ and the admiral, and intensely grieved over the lack of any tidings from the _David_ or her men, which, however, caused him little surprise, but he was glad, indeed, they had been so brilliantly successful in eliminating the magnificent new steam sloop-of-war _Housatonic_ from the force blockading them. Incidentally he learned, with some additional satisfaction, that Admiral Vernon was to be relieved of his command on account of illness and was going North with his flagship in a few days. The admiral had shown himself so intensely enterprising and pugnacious that Beauregard hoped and expected that any change in opponents would be for the betterment of the situation from the Southern point of view. When he had digested the important news of the morning, he sent for his prisoner of the night before. The general had been very indignant on the wharf, and justly so, but he instinctively felt that there was something in the situation, which, if he could get at it, might relieve from the odium of his position the young officer, whose family history, no less than his personal character, absolutely negatived the idea of cowardice or treachery.