"You were not? You ran away to New Orleans last winter when your father told you not to go. You came home from the academy when he told you to remain there. You have spent the evening in Mobile when he told you not to go there. I could tell you instances all day in which you disobeyed him, and mother too," continued the soldier warmly. "That was different." "It was different; and you could obey your father in a bad cause, but not in a good one. I am heartily ashamed of you, and I don't feel willing to own you as a brother of mine." "But my father told me that I could better serve the good cause by going with him than I could by joining the army." "And you were willing to go with him, for then you could keep out of danger. Father is getting old, and he is not fit to serve in the army; and you have been his pet since you were born. But that is no excuse for you; and if I can get you back into the army, I mean to do so." Percy was afraid he might succeed, and he did not feel as confident as he had been; and he lost, for the time, some of his self-possession. He was confronting the fate he had dreaded when he found the steamer was leaving Nassau. "What are you doing here?" demanded the major, looking down upon the deck of the vessel for the first time. "I am taking this steamer into the bay, where she is to go into the service of the Confederate States," answered Percy, plucking a little more confidence from the nature of his present occupation. "You are taking her into the bay!" exclaimed the older brother. "That is what I said, and that is what I mean," added Percy, glad to see that his mission had produced an impression. "Taking this steamer into the bay!" repeated the major, evidently unable to comprehend the mission of his brother. "Do you mean to say that _you_ are taking her in, Percy?" "That is what I mean to say, and do say." "Are you the pilot of the steamer? I should think you might have been, for she was aground just now," sneered the commander of the fort. "I am not the pilot, and I don't pretend to be a sailor; but the steamer is in my charge," replied Percy, elevating his head to the need of the occasion. "In charge of the steamer! I would not trust a coward like you in charge of a sick monkey," added Lindley, with his contempt fully expressed in his face. "See here, Lindley, I don't mean to be insulted on board of this steamer by my own brother. If you can't be decent, I have nothing more to say to you!" cried Percy, his wrath breaking out quite violently. "If you give me an impudent word, I will take you into the boat and put you into the fort," added the major, as he stepped down upon the deck. "No, you won't. I will jump overboard before I will be carried to the fort. I have done just what my father told me to do, to say nothing of my mother; and I won't be insulted by you. It is you who are the coward and the poltroon, to do so," continued Percy, boiling over with rage.