"Glory!" shouted Tom, jumping up and throwing his hat into the air; and even his father began to show signs of excitement. "Tell him not to mind us, but to go up and lay Washington in ashes. Our papers said long ago that it must be purified by fire before Southern legislators would consent to go there again. Well, which course did Buchanan decide to follow?" "I don't know," replied Mark. "I wish I did; but that letter was written on the evening of the 8th, after the _Virginia_ drew out of the fight and came back to Norfolk." "Were any of our brave fellows injured?" asked Mrs. Allison. "Oh, yes. Buchanan himself was wounded, and treacherously too. When the _Congress_ struck her flag and our boats went alongside to take possession of her, she opened fire on us again. That made Buchanan mad, and he riddled her with his big guns till he killed her captain and more than a hundred of her crew." "She was deservedly punished," said Mrs. Allison, and all on the porch agreed with her, though there was not a word of truth in the story. The volley of musketry that was poured into the Confederate small boats came from the Union troops on shore, who did not know that the Congress had surrendered. "Go on and tell us some more good news," said Tom, when his friend settled back in his chair. "That's about all I heard, because the letter did not go much into particulars; but there'll be others smuggled through in a day or two, and some papers, most likely, and then I shall expect to hear that our fellows are in Washington. At any rate the people around here are acting on the supposition that we have got the upper hand of the Yanks, and I want to be able to say that I had a hand in whipping them, so I have joined the Home Guards. So has my father." "The Home Guards?" echoed Tom. "I was not aware that there was an organization of that kind in the settlement," said Mr. Allison. "I didn't either until father told me last night," answered Mark. "And I am a little too fast in saying that I have joined. I am going to hand in my name this very day, and Tom, you must go with me." "I'll do it," said Tom, getting upon his feet and squaring off at an imaginary antagonist. "What are we going to do? Who are we going to whip, and what is the object of the thing, any way?" "Well, I--we're going to fight," replied Mark. "I suppose one object of the organization is to keep the spirit of patriotism alive among our people," observed Mr. Allison. "That's the idea; and to make the traitors among us shut their mouths and quit carrying their heads so high," cried Mark. "They have had companies of this kind in Kentucky and Tennessee for a long time; and in Missouri the State Guards, as they are called, have done the most of the fighting. Ben Hawkins says that if we had had strong companies of well-disciplined Home Guards around here, Roanoke Island would not have been captured."