Beardsley was so impatient to get to sea, and so very anxious to handle the fortune he was sure he was going to make by his first attempt at blockade running, that he employed all the men that could be worked to advantage, and took on board every bale he could possibly find room for. The deck load was so large that it threatened to interfere with the handling of the sails! and when a tug pulled the schooner's head around till it pointed down the river, she set so low in the water that she could not show her usual speed, even with the tide in her favor, and Tierney said in Marcy's hearing that he believed he could hoist a sail in a washing-tub and reach Nassau before the schooner could leave the sand dunes of Hatteras out of sight. But the captain did not seem to think he had made any mistake in loading his vessel, although he did show some anxiety for her safety; for when she reached Crooked Inlet he walked aft and took charge of the wheel himself, and without saying one word to the young fellow whom he called his pilot, until he saw the latter looking at him as if he wanted to know what Beardsley meant by such work. "There, now," said the captain, by way of explanation, "I thought you was below; I did for a fact. And so I said to myself that I wouldn't bother you, but would try and take her through without your help, just to see if I could do it, you know. Supposing you was the only one aboard who knew the channel, and something should happen to you, and I should want to come through here in a hurry to get out of the way of a war ship that was close in my wake; wouldn't I be in a pretty fix? Now stand by, so't you can give me a word in case I don't hold her just right." "You old hypocrite," thought Marcy. "If that was the first lie you ever told it would choke you. So he thinks something is going to happen to me, does he? Now what does he mean by that?" Captain Beardsley had done nothing more than Marcy expected him to do, but he did not have a word of fault to find with it, as a regular pilot would have done when he saw his business taken out of his hands in so unceremonious a fashion. If the skipper was willing to pay him five hundred dollars for doing nothing, the boy didn't think he ought to complain. He took his stand close by the captain's side, but he did not touch the wheel, nor did he so much as look at the black and red buoys that marked the channel. He was turning these words over in his mind: "Suppose something should happen to you!" Was he to understand that Beardsley had made up his mind to get rid of him in some way? "If that is what he wants, why didn't he pay me off while we were in Newbern?" was the question Marcy asked himself. "But for some reason or other it doesn't suit him to have me at home with mother; and that makes me think that there's going to be an attempt made to steal the money she has hidden in the cellar wall. Oh, how I wish Jack was at home."