"Mr. Nelson," said he, at length, "I wish I could have gone up Red River. I want to see home once more, but I don't want to stand by and see the old house burned over the heads of my mother and sisters. I don't deny that the order is a just one, but I don't want to see it executed. I begin to believe that I am a good prophet," he continued, after a moment's pause. "I told father, in the last letter I ever wrote to him, that this war would bring him nothing but suffering and disgrace, and I think he will find that I told the truth." As George ceased speaking, he turned and walked to another part of the deck, to meet the captain, who at that moment came out of his cabin. Among all the ship's company, there was but one that could sympathize with George, and that one was Frank. The young officer cherished an honest enmity toward the traitors whose bloody hands were stretched out to pull down the Old Flag under which his ancestors had fought and died, but when Frank looked upon the pale face of his messmate, and listened to his oft-repeated sentiments of loyalty, and heard him, in his quiet way, expressing his firm belief in the final triumph of the Government and the total overthrow of the rebellion, and when he witnessed his quiet submission to his cruel fate, knowing that he was cut off from all further intercourse with his relatives, he could not help pitying both him and his rebel parents. But he knew, from those letters he had read, and which George still preserved, and from what he had witnessed on that memorable night when he and his companions had stopped at the plantation and asked for food, that the general and his family had taken part with the rebellion, not to secure any rights which they imagined had been denied them, but to assist in "establishing a confederacy of their own, whose corner-stone should be slavery," and to destroy "every vestige of the old Union." Like George, he knew that the order to burn the house was a just one; but he would have been much better pleased had some other boat been selected to execute it. He did not pity the rebels so much, but he did not want to witness the sorrow his messmate would experience when he saw the home of his boyhood enveloped in flames. The next day, as the two friends stood together on deck, George suddenly said-- "We're almost there. I know these woods well. I've caught many a string of fish off that log that lies in the water just ahead." About half a mile further on, the Michigan came round a sharp bend in the river, and they saw the plantation before them. Every thing looked just as it did on that long-to-be-remembered night when George had suddenly presented himself before his relatives, who thought him safe in the prison at Tyler. There were the broad stone steps that led up to the portico on which the major had stood while making known his wants, and just in front of them were the posts to which the general and his sons had fastened their horses before entering the house.