"When she gets clear of Plymouth we'll run up the mainsail and then she'll go a-humming," said he, rubbing his hands gleefully together. "This is the first time I was ever in command of a vessel sailing by government authority, and I feel an inch or two taller'n I ever felt before on my own quarter-deck. But this is a gun-deck now, aint it?" he added, stamping his foot upon it to see how solid it was. "If we only had aboard the howitzer that belongs here so that we could salute Plymouth as we skim by--You aint listening to me at all. What you looking at so steady?" The captain faced about, and, following the direction of Marcy's gaze, saw the man Tierney slowly climbing the stairs that led to the deck. When he got to the top he turned around and came aft in the most unconcerned manner possible. "Well, there," exclaimed the captain, dropping both his hands by his side and acting as if he were too astonished to say more just then. "If he aint got back I wouldn't say so." Marcy's first thought was to give the wheel a fling, spill the sails, and demand to be put ashore at once; but he did not do it. As Dixon once told the colonel of the Barrington academy, it was too plain a case. Tierney had been aboard the schooner all the time, and Marcy might have found it out if he had been sharp enough to look between decks. "I'm glad he's come back, for he's the gunner I was telling you about," whispered the captain. "We couldn't get along without him, don't you know we couldn't? Say," he added, as Tierney came up, "didn't you leave word with your partner that you had discharged yourself and wasn't never coming back any more? Aint you a pretty chap to show your face aboard my vessel, and you talking of giving her up to the--" "Oh, what's the use of keeping that farce up any longer?" cried Marcy, in disgust. "You can't fool me. I don't know what Tierney's object was in trying to bamboozle me the way he did--" "Well, I'll tell you," the man interposed, "and I'll be honest with you, too. I heard you were a Union man, and I did not want to sail with you if you were." "That's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," chimed in the captain, nodding and winking at Marcy. "Well, are you quite satisfied with the test you applied to me?" inquired the pilot. "I am. I know that you are as good a Southern man as any body in the country." "And you are willing to acknowledge that you and the captain talked the matter over beforehand, and that when you came to me, to urge me to seize the vessel and turn her over to the Yankees, you did it with his knowledge and consent?" continued Marcy, controlling himself with an effort. "Course he is," exclaimed Beardsley. "I told him he would find you true as steel, but he--" "But I wouldn't believe it until I had proved it to my own satisfaction," chimed in Tierney.