Part 21 (1/2)

”Certainly, Captain; pardon me for detaining you. I am a prisoner, and I shall need my trunk, which is in my stateroom on board of the Tallahatchie. Gill will bring it on board if you send word to him to do so,” replied the colonel.

He followed the captain to his cabin. The door of the Confederate commander's room was open, and the planter exchanged a few words with him. He was shown to the other stateroom, and Punch was ordered to do all that he could for the comfort of the pa.s.senger. Captain Breaker spoke a few pleasant words with the wounded commander, and then hastened on deck.

Mr. Ballard, the second lieutenant, had again been duly installed as temporary executive officer; Mr. Walbrook had been moved up, and Mr.

Bostwick, master, had become third lieutenant. As usual, the engineers were Englishmen, who had come over in the Trafalgar, as well as the greater part of the crew, though the other officers were Southern gentlemen who had ”retired” from the United States Navy. The foreigners were willing to remain in the engine room, and promised to do their duty faithfully as long as their wages were paid; but Leon Bolter, the first a.s.sistant engineer of the Bellevite, was sent on board of the prize to insure their fidelity.

Ensigns Palmer Drake and Richard Leyton, who were serving on board of the steamer while waiting for positions, were sent to the Tallahatchie, the first named as prizemaster, and the other as his first officer, with a prize crew of twenty men, and the two steamers got under way.

CHAPTER XX

A VERY MELANCHOLY CONFEDERATE

Notwithstanding his military t.i.tle, Colonel Homer Pa.s.sford was not a soldier, though he had once been a sort of honorary head of a regiment of militia. His brother, Captain Horatio Pa.s.sford, Christy's father, was a millionaire in the tenth degree. More than twenty years before the war he had a.s.sisted Homer to all the money he required to buy a plantation in Alabama, near Mobile, where he had prospered exceedingly, though his possessions had never been a tenth part of those of his wealthy brother.

Homer had married in the South, and was the father of a son and daughter, now approaching their maturity, and Corny, the son, was a soldier in the Confederate army. The most affectionate relations had always subsisted between the two families; and before the war the Bellevite had always visited Glenfield, the plantation of the colonel, at least twice a year.

Florry Pa.s.sford, the captain's daughter, being somewhat out of health, had pa.s.sed the winter before the beginning of the war at Glenfield, and was there when the enemy's guns opened upon Fort Sumter. Captain Pa.s.sford had not supposed that his brother in Alabama would take part with the South in the Rebellion, and with great difficulty and risk he had gone to Glenfield in the Bellevite, for the purpose of conveying his daughter to his home at Bonnydale on the Hudson, not doubting that Homer and his family would be his pa.s.sengers on the return to the North.

He was entirely mistaken in regard to the political sentiments of the colonel, and found that he was one of the most devoted and determined advocates of the Southern cause. The southern brother did not conceal his opinions, and it was plain enough to the captain that he was entirely sincere, and believed with all his mind, heart, and soul, that it was his religious, moral, and social duty to espouse what he called his country's cause; and he had done so with all his influence and his fortune. He had even gone so far in his devotion to his duty as he understood it, as to attempt to hand over the Bellevite, though she was not in Mobile Bay on a warlike mission, to the new government of the South, and had taken part personally in an expedition extended to capture her.

The steam-yacht had been armed at the Bermudas, and fought her way out of the bay; and on her return to New York her owner presented her to the Government of the United States. She had done good service, and Christy had begun his brilliant career as a naval officer in the capacity of a mids.h.i.+pman on board of her. In spite of the hostile political att.i.tude of the brothers to each other, the same affectionate relations had continued between the two families, for each of them believed that social and family ties should not interfere with his patriotic duty to his country.

The commander of the Confederate forces at Hilton Head--one of the highest-toned and most estimable gentlemen one could find in the North or the South--informed the author that his own brother was in command of one of the Federal s.h.i.+ps that were bombarding his works. While Commodore Wilkes, of Mason and Slidell memory, was capturing the Southern representatives who had to be given up, his son was in the Confederate navy, and then or later was casting guns at Charlotte for the use of the South: and the writer never met a more reasonable and kindly man.

Fortunately our two brothers were not called upon to confront each other as foes on the battlefield or on the sea, though both of them would have done their duty in such positions.

The last time Christy had seen his Uncle Homer was when he was captured on board of the Dornoch with Captain Rombold, as he was endeavoring to obtain a pa.s.sage to England as a Confederate agent for the purchase of suitable vessels to prey upon the mercantile marine of the United States. He and the commander of the Tallahatchie had been exchanged at about the same time; and they had proceeded to Na.s.sau, where they embarked for England in a cotton steamer. There they had purchased and fitted out the Trafalgar; for the agent's drafts, in which the last of his fortune had been absorbed, could not be made available to his captors. Colonel Pa.s.sford had an interview with Captain Rombold after Gill had brought his trunk on board; and it was a very sad occasion to the planter, if not to the naval officer. They had not had an opportunity to consider the disaster that had overtaken the Confederate steamer, which had promised such favorable results for their cause; for the commander had been entirely occupied till he received his wound, and even then he had attended to his duties, for, as before suggested, he was a ”last ditch” man. He was not fighting for the South as a mere hireling; for he had married a Southern wife, and she had enlisted all his sympathies in the cause of her people.

”I suppose we have nothing more to hope for, Captain Rombold; and we can only put our trust in the All-Wise and the All-Powerful, who never forsakes his children when they are fighting for right and justice,”

said Colonel Pa.s.sford, after he had condoled with the commander on his wounded condition.

”We shall come out all right in the end, Colonel; don't be so cast down,” replied the captain.

”I raised the money by mortgaging my plantation and what other property I had left for all the money I could get upon it to a wealthy Englishman, the one who came to Mobile with us from Na.s.sau, to obtain the cargoes for this steamer. I had borrowed all I could before that for the purchase of the Trafalgar; and if the current does not change in our favor soon, I shall be a beggar,” added the colonel bitterly.

”The tide will turn, my good friend; and it would have turned before now if all the planters had been as self-sacrificing as you have,” said the captain.

”Cotton and gold are about the same thing just now; and with the large cargo on board of the West Wind, which I induced my friends to contribute to the good cause, and that in the hold of the Tallahatchie, I was confident that I could purchase the Kilmarnock, which you say is good for eighteen knots an hour. Now the West Wind and the Tallahatchie are both prizes of the enemy, and there is no present hope for us,”

continued the colonel; and there was no wonder that he had become pale and thin.

”We are in a bad situation, Colonel Pa.s.sford, I admit, for both of us are prisoners of war, so that we can do nothing, even if we had the means; but everything will come out right in the end,” replied the wounded officer, though he could not explain in what manner this result was to be achieved.

”Well, Captain Rombold, how are you feeling?” asked Dr. Linscott, darkening the door when the conversation had reached this gloomy point.

”Very comfortable, Doctor,” replied the commander. ”My friend is Colonel Pa.s.sford.”

”Bless me!” exclaimed the surgeon, as he extended his hand to the visitor. ”I am very glad to see you, and I hope you are very well. I am happy to inform you that your nephew, who was wounded in the engagement, is doing very well.”