"For the defense of Washington the whole force was about seven thousand strong, of whom nine hundred were enlisted men. The cavalry did not exceed four hundred in number. The little army had twenty-six pieces of cannon, of which twenty were only six-pounders. This force, if concentrated, would have been competent to roll back the invasion had the commanding officer been untrammeled by the interference of the President and his Cabinet." All that was written when the facts of the case were well known, and now the story shall be taken up as I wrote it when a boy. * * * * * It was not all plain sailing from Nottingham to Pig Point, for the water was shallow, and there were many places where it was necessary to handle even a pungy very tenderly in order to avoid taking the ground. While Darius was not well acquainted with the stream, he had a sailorly eye for bad places, and never made the mistake of trying to jump the little vessel where she was likely to be held hard and fast. Many times were we forced to take to the canoe in order to pull the Avenger's nose around more sharply than could be done by the helm, and when it came to such labor of pulling and hauling the commodore lent a hand as if we had been his equal in station. And we did work lively, for a fact, hoping to have our anchor down before any other craft could arrive, therefore no one complained when Darius called on us for labor which might have been saved at the expense of three or four minutes in time. The commander was even more eager than were we, to arrive at the appointed rendezvous speedily, and we could readily guess that some big change was to be made in the general plans, although what it might be we came far from guessing, since all of us, save Darius Thorpe, believed he was simply running away from the enemy. Well, we succeeded in doing as we wished in regard to beating out the remainder of the fleet, for when we came to anchor off the point and snugged everything down Bristol fashion, there were no signs that a single craft was following. Commodore Barney was chafing because of the delay, as could be seen by the way in which he paced the deck, rubbing his hands from time to time as he gazed down stream in vain for some token of the laggards. "It's only a deep water sailor who obeys smartly, Darius," the commander said, halting in his nervous walk to face the old man, and Jerry and I, who were seated on the main-hatch, pricked up our ears, for it seemed positive we were to learn somewhat of future doings. "These younger men know too bloomin' much, that's what's the matter with them," Darius said in reply. "I'll go bail that half the crowd we left at Nottingham believed they knew better'n you when the start should be made, an' stopped to curl their hair before makin' sail." Commodore Barney laughed heartily at the old man's growling, and then said suddenly: