While Julius was digging in one of Mrs. Gray's flower-beds under Marcy's supervision, and the quilt on his bed was being ripped to pieces, Mr. Watkins was standing in the front yard, telling the master's mate what he had seen and heard in the house. The young officer was astonished, and declared he had never dreamed that there was such Union sentiment anywhere in the South. "I did not believe there was either, though I have often heard of it," replied Mr. Watkins, "but I believe it now. It is easy enough for us who are surrounded by loyal people to swear by the old flag, but I tell you it must take pluck and plenty of it to do it down here. I wish some one else had been ordered to do this work, for I have taken her last prop away from that poor woman in there. She is a heroine; and as for the boy, he is as true as steel, and as brave as they make them. One can't look in his face and think anything else of him. He has gone to dig up the captain's money and will be along directly. I never thought to ask him how he got his hand hurt." While the officer was adding to his subordinate's surprise by telling how completely Lon Beardsley had reduced Captain Benton to poverty by taking the _Hollins_ from him, Mrs. Gray came down the steps with Marcy's flag in her hand and followed by three laughing darkies, who brought with them large trays loaded with something good to eat and drink--bread and butter, cold meat, and pitchers filled to the brim with the richest of milk. While the hungry gunboat men were regaling themselves and wondering at such treatment from Southerners, all of whom they supposed to be the most implacable and violent of rebels, Mrs. Gray shook out the folds of the flag, and spread it upon the wall where they could all see it. The unexpected sight thrilled them, and every cap was lifted. "If things wasn't just as they are, missus," said one, "we'd give it a cheer; asking your pardon and the deck's for speaking when I wasn't spoke to." "But our guns will cheer it in the morning, and they will make more noise than we could," observed another. "Likewise asking pardon for speaking." At this moment Marcy appeared, bundled up ready for his trip to the coast, and carrying in his hand a valise, which contained, among other things, the box that held Captain Benton's money. It was all in gold, too; for at that time gold was as plenty as scrip in the Confederacy, and Captain Beardsley, ignorant as he was on some points, was much too shrewd a man of business to take paper money when he could have what he called the "hard stuff" for the asking. Had the _Hollins_ been captured one short year later, Marcy would have been obliged to take his share of the prize money in scrip, and Captain Benton might have thought himself lucky if he had received twenty cents on the dollar.