"I don't understand you," answered Tom, who was all in the dark. "Our authorities didn't send you home, of course, and the Yankees couldn't. If your schooner is in good shape----" "The _Hattie_ is all right," said Beardsley, with a ring of pride in his tones. "She has been in some tight places, I can tell you, and if she hadn't showed herself to be just the sweetest, fastest thing of her inches that ever floated, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. And the Yankees did send me home too; or their friends did, which amounts to the same thing. What's become of Mrs. Gray's overseer, Hanson?" "I can't make out what you mean, when you say that the Yankees or their friends sent you home," replied Allison. "We haven't heard of their making many captures along the coast lately." "I dunno as it makes any sort of odds to me what you didn't hear. I know what I am talking about. What's happened to Hanson, I ask you?" "How do you suppose I can tell? And if you only came home last night, how does it come that you know anything has happened to him?" inquired Tom, who thought he saw a chance to learn something. "I haven't seen that man Hanson for a long time." "Nor me; but I know well enough that there's something went wrong with him," said Beardsley very decidedly. "I know that he was took out of his house at dead of night by a gang of men, that he was carried away, and that nobody ain't likely to see hide nor hair of him any more." "That news is old, and I don't see why you should assume so mysterious an air in speaking of it," said Tom. "Your daughter has had time enough to tell you all about it since you came home." "But I heard about it before I left Newbern." "You did! Who told you?" "Well, I heard all about it." "What if you did? I don't see how Hanson's disappearance could interfere with your blockade-running." "Mebbe you don't, but I do. If you had been in my place, and somebody had sent you a letter saying that if you didn't quit business and come home at once, some of your buildings would be burned up, what would you think then? Do you reckon it would bust up your blockade running or not?" "Do you pretend to tell me that you received such a letter?" cried Allison, who could scarcely believe his ears. "That is just what I pretend to tell you--no less," answered the captain, tapping the breast of his coat as if to say that he could prove his words if necessary. "Why--why, who could have sent it to you? Who do you think wrote it?" "You tell. I don't know the first thing about it; I wish I did. I am here now, and if I could only put my finger on the chap who caused me all this bother, I'd fix him." "Would you bushwhack him?" inquired Allison, wondering if there was any way in which he could prevail upon Beardsley to show him that letter.