These last words were called forth by the exclamation of surprise and delight that Marcy uttered when the truth of the whole matter flashed suddenly upon him. The absent Jack had told him that the morning was coming when his mother would not hear the field hands called to work because there would be no one to call them, and his prediction had been verified. Aleck Webster was true blue, the Union men who held secret meetings in the swamp could be depended on to hold their rebel neighbors in check, and Marcy Gray could hardly refrain from dancing with delight at the thought of it. "Come in and I will tell you all I know about it," said he, throwing his arm about his mother's waist and leading her into the hall. "You needn't worry. Every one of the men who came here that night were your friends and mine, and they----" "But who were they?" asked Mrs. Gray. "It is probable that one of them sailed with Jack when he was on the _West Wind;_ but who the others were I don't know, and it isn't at all likely that I shall ever find out," replied Marcy. "Not in the dining-room, please, because there's a stove-pipe hole in the ceiling that leads into a room upstairs. Oh, it's a fact," he added with a laugh, when his mother stopped and looked at him. "A certain person, whose name I shall presently give you, listened at that pipe-hole time and again, and took messages straight to Hanson. But you'll not blame him when you hear my story. Let's go into the back parlor. By the way, did you find your breastpin?" His mother said in reply, that she had neither seen nor heard of it since the day it was stolen. "Well I've got it safe and sound," continued Marcy; and then he settled back in his chair and repeated, almost word for word, the story sailor Jack had told him the night before he left for the blockading fleet. He told how Julius had taken the pin in the first place, how the overseer had worked upon his fears to compel him to give it up, and how he had used the power which the possession of the stolen pin enabled him to exercise over the timid black boy. Then he described how sailor Jack and his "Enchanted Goblet" appeared upon the scene; and from that he glided into the history of Jack's acquaintance with Aleck Webster, and the interviews he had held with him at the post-office. But there were two things he did not touch upon--the meeting with Captain Beardsley at Crooked Inlet, and sailor Jack's fears that the Confederate authorities might interest themselves in the matter if they learned, through any of her "secret enemies," that Mrs. Gray kept money concealed in the house. His mother was profoundly astonished, and when Marcy finished his story she did not know whether to be glad or frightened. The boy thought, from the expression of her countenance, that he had added to her fears.