sails, and the marks where Federal cannonballs
had "hulled" them during the fruitless
chase.

Mrs. Bolton, my charge, was a timid, delicate
little woman, quite unfit to lighten my burden
of responsibility by taking any portion of it on
herself. She loved her husband dearly, and to
reach the couch where he lay wounded, and
perhaps dying, she was willing to endure
hardships and confront dangers that at another time
would have seemed insurmountable to her. But
as for any aid or advice in such a matter as
running the blockade, I might as well have
applied for counsel to her two baby girls, little
Lucy and Fanny, as to their mother, my
employer's niece. Thrown thus wholly upon my
own resources, I spent much time in the
preliminary inquiries, and at last comforted myself
that I had come to a sensible and practical
decision.

The vessel in which I took our passages was
a swift-sailing English schooner, the Saucy
Jane, of and from Liverpool. A beautiful craft
she was, with her tapering masts and fine lines,
lying like a duck on the heaving surges of the
Nassau roadstead. But her chief attraction in
my eyes was the high reputation for seamanship
and prudence which her commander had
acquired. With his sailing vessel, Captain
Harrison had made six successful trips, four to
Charleston and two to Wilmington, in the very
teeth of the blockading squadron. In each case
he had safely delivered a valuable cargo to the
Confederate consignees, and had made the run
home with a freight of cotton for the Lancashire
market, and though chased, had got off scot-
free, while fast steamers were daily being sunk
or driven ashore. In these bold and dexterous
evasions of the Federal fleet the merchant
captain had amassed a considerable sum of money,
and this was to be the Saucy Jane's last visit to
a Southern port, at least with her present commander.

"It's profitable work, very," said the daring
young sailor, as he told me of his intention over
a glass of wine in his little cabin, when our
passages had been definitively engaged and paid
for on board the schooner; "but it's too like
gambling to suit my taste, and I can't get out
of my head that saying about the pitcher that
goes often to the well. All I've made in six
double trips—a tidy lump of dollars—is aboard
the craft now, in the shape of quinine, and
negro-cloth, and shoes, and fire-arms, ready to
yield four hundred per cent profit if I can swap
it for cotton, and as much more if I can land
the cotton at Liverpool. And if all goes well,
I can cut the concern, and sail to China in a
three-master of my own, and Mary Anne and
I——"

But here Captain Harrison came to a stop,
probably remembering that he had told enough
of his private affairs and prospects to a stranger.
I took a fancy to this high-spirited young
skipper, who was a year or two my junior, but
a first-rate seaman, bold as a lion, and by no
means as incautiously communicative in his
dealings with all the world as he had shown
himself with me.

"You see," he frankly remarked, "when a
chap's knocked about the world, from port to
port, as I have done since I was bound 'prentice
aboard the Hood barque, in the Rio trade, he
gets to know something of physiognomy. And
I saw at once that you were what you represented
yourself to be, even before you showed
me the letters of credit drawn and signed by
your people, that my owners bank with, too, as
luck would have it. But, mind you, the island's
choke-full of spies. They're about us all day
long on one pretence or another, like wasps
round a comb of honey. And there isn't so
much as a word buzzed ashore that doesn't find
its way, by fair means or foul, to that beauty
there."

Captain Harrison pointed to a dim speck
hovering far out at sea, beyond the mouth of
the bay, above which curled a thin wreath of
dusky vapour. This was the United States
steam-sloop Pocahontas, whose peculiar duty it
was to watch Nassau and the ships anchored
there. This vessel was perpetually a source of
annoyance, not only to the merchants of the
place, but also to the authorities. She was fond
of lying, with steam up, ports open, and a spring
on her cable, near some ship that was
notoriously on the eve of departure for the Southern
ports. And even now, when in compliance with
the governor's peremptory commands, enforced
by the presence of her Majesty's ship Fury, she
had reluctantly retired to the prescribed limits
of one marine league, she remained there as long
as her coal would serve her, in hopes of cutting
off some would-be blockade runner in the outset
of her career.

On shore there were other dangers. Lean,
wiry men, with keen features and restless eyes,
were constantly to be met with at the bars of
the hotels and taverns, from the handsomest
hostelries down to the low-browed cabins where
coarse Mexican corn-brandy was sold, and these,
though loud and blatant as to their Southern
sympathies, were nevertheless in constant
communication with the American consul. More
specious spies, either real Europeans or affecting
the garb and speech of natives of the old
continent, lurked in the boarding-houses, on the
wharves, about the merchants' offices, and
beguiled the unwary into conversation on the
engrossing topic of the contraband trade. The
sailors belonging to the different ships about to
sail were so often tampered with, that many
captains found it necessary to refuse all shore
leave, lest the hour of departure should be
signalled to the Federal cruiser lying in the offing,
like a vulture on the wing. That she was signalled
every night, by some concerted system of
lights displayed from house-tops on shore, was
no secret to any one in Nassau.

I was by no means the only person eager to
avail myself of the opportunity of crossing in
the Saucy Jane to the mainland. Several
parties, even of the more cautious among the
Southerners, had arranged to embark when the