Captain Rhines was occupied with business the remainder of the day, and in the evening went aboard of the brigantine. The Arthur left before the arrival of the Casco bringing tidings of the disappearance of Peterson; consequently the ship's company had not heard of it till informed by the captain, on the evening of their arrival. It therefore excited no little astonishment and interest when they were informed that he was sold for a slave in Martinique. After the affair had been thoroughly discussed in all its bearings, the captain said, "I am getting somewhat the worse for wear, and when I went to Cuba on the raft, I took leave of the sea, as I thought, forever; but James Peterson saved my life once; and before a man like him (born a slave, now an American citizen, and as noble-hearted a creature as ever drew the breath of life) shall live and die a slave, perhaps feel the lash, I'll risk these old bones once more, and spend the last dollar I've got in the world."

"Captain Rhines," cried Walter, leaping to his feet, "you shan't go. You ought not to go. I'll go. I, too, loved Peterson dearly. He carried me in his arms when a child. I have spent weeks at his house. He made all my playthings, and would do anything for our folks. I'll go, and something tells me I shall succeed."

"Count me in, too," cried Ned. "I love everybody that Walter loves. James was just like a father to me when I was wounded—sat up nights, and did everything for me."

"It is a great undertaking for persons of your age, and without much experience; but, ever since you went from home, you have been put in places where boys ripen fast, and always shown yourselves capable of accomplishing whatever you undertook. You are going, too, upon a good, I may say holy, errand, and may certainly expect aid and wisdom from aloft. Have you thought of any plan, Walter?"

"No, sir; we are only boys, and must leave the direction of affairs with you, who know everything."

"I am a great ways from knowing everything," said the captain, smiling. "We have been talking this matter over amongst ourselves the better part of an hour and a half, and I don't think you made the offer you have without some plan in your head upon which it was built."

The captain made these remarks, wishing to draw Walter out.

"As I sat listening to your account," said Walter, "it appeared to me that, as Ned and myself had quite a little pile of money for boys of our age, we could not spend part of it in any better manner than by using it to restore Peterson to his family; that we might ship in some vessel, before the mast, to Martinique, for low wages, to leave when we got there. If we couldn't do that, work our passage; and, if no captain would take us on that lay, pay our passage. As we both speak French well, we should have no difficulty in finding the place where he is, if alive."

"How would you get him off, if you found him?"

"I suppose we must be governed by circumstances, when on the spot."

"But you have probably thought of some way, if you should succeed in getting hold of him, to get him and yourselves home?"

"I have heard Uncle John say," said Walter, "that he has come out of the West Indies in yellow fever time, when there was only one man besides himself and his first and second mates fit for duty, and all he could do was to sit in a chair and steer, and the crews of other American vessels hove up the anchor and mast-headed the topsails for them; and, as soon as they got to sea, they all began to come right up. So, as it will be right in the sickly time of year, if we don't die ourselves, there will be plenty of vessels short-handed that will be glad enough to ship us."

The captain, perceiving by the looks of Ned that he had some ideas in respect to the matter in hand, but was too modest to speak, asked his companion.

"Please, sir, I don't think my opinion would be of any value; but if you will plan for us, sir, it will all go right."

"I know you have some ideas, Ned, and I want to hear them. Speak up, like a man. If you are going to risk your life, and spend hard-earned money, you certainly are entitled to your opinions."

Thus exhorted and encouraged, Ned, after some hesitation, said,—

"You know, sir, after you took us from the raft I was a long time at Charlie Bell's, very weak and miserable—could only sit in a chair, and walk about the room."

"Yes."

"Well, Charlie, in order to amuse me and pass the time, told me about your going to Havana in the Ark; of the ventures you carried for him and others. He told me what a lot of money was made on such simple things as beets, onions, carrots, and potatoes, that are worth next to nothing at home; that you made a lot on some hens, butter, candles, and on beef—more, according to, than even on the lumber."

"That is all so."

"I hope you and Captain Brown will excuse me, sir, for presuming to plan for people who know all about it. I was thinking that perhaps by and by Walter and I might put our money together, build part of a vessel, and go in her,—he master, and I mate; and that we ought, if it is right, to keep our money, and get all we can to put with it. Not but I am willing to spend the last dollar for James, if it is necessary; but it seems to me it would be better to make money than to spend money."

"But how are you going to get James?"

"I was thinking, sir, if we could get a fore-and-after, a sloop, or some kind of a vessel that we could handle, load her with something that wouldn't be so bulky as lumber,—like those things you carried for ventures,—so that a small vessel could carry a good deal of value, we might get Peterson clear, and make money for ourselves likewise."

"Bravo, my boy! That's a plan just as full of sense as it can be."

"Then, you know, sir, we should have the vessel to get home with and bring James in."

"To be sure you would, and make a lot on your return cargo. What do you think of that plan, Walter?"

"I think it is a first-rate plan, sir."

"This little chap that you and all of us have been petting, and calling little Ned so long, is outgrowing his teachers. He'll be taking the wind out of your sails by and by."

"There's nothing lost that a good friend gets," said Walter, putting his arm round Ned.

"Well said. It's a principle I have always acted upon."

"It struck me, while Ned was speaking, that if we carried such kind of freight as he suggests, why not go and peddle it out at some of the small ports. What is to hinder going to the plantation of this very Lemaire, and swap our truck for his, get the right side of him, and that would give us a first-rate opportunity to get at Peterson."

"So you could. Nobody but a Yankee would have thought of that; whereas, if you should go hanging round there without any business, you would be suspected in a moment, watched, and perhaps shot or stabbed."

"Allow me to make a suggestion," said Captain Brown.

"Certainly; the more heads the better."

"Does that Lemaire own those drogers, or only go in them?"

"Owns them! Man alive, he owns three estates and four or five hundred niggers. I've sold him lumber, bought sugar and coffee of him, and they say he treats his slaves well, and gives them a chance to earn money for themselves, and buy their freedom."

"Then he must have to buy a great many spars for drogers' masts. Why not take a deck-load of spars and the other stuff in the hold? Then he would be sure to trade with you, especially if you gave him a good bargain. If he didn't want all the spars at once, he could pile them up."

"Those drogers are large, and require quite a large stick for masts. It would take a larger vessel than the boys could handle. You can't keep them on hand in that climate. If you pile them up, they rot; if you put them in the salt water, the worms will eat them up in sixty days."

"Captain," said Sewall Lancaster, "may I speak in meeting?"

"Free your mind, brother."

"Wal, what's the matter they couldn't take frames all ready to put up for nigger quarters, small timbers not very bulky, sell 'em, not by the foot, but for so much right out? I was out there three years ago in the John and Frederick, with old Cap'n Treadwell. No! How time runs away! 'Twas four years ago this very month, because it was three days before we sailed, that Lion Ben sarved Joe Bradish such a rinctum."

"What was that?" asked Captain Brown; "let us hear it, Lancaster."

"Wal, you see the Lion, besides being so all-fired strong, is a great teamster; they say the greatest in town (now Uncle Isaac Murch is gone). He won't abuse an ox, neither, nor let anybody else; but Joe (he's no teamster at all, nor much else; when he gits stuck, he takes off the forrard cattle), he can't make four oxen pull together; he's real cruel, too. I've seen him stand with one foot on the tongue, and the other on an ox's back, and beat him with a stake. Wal, he got to the foot of Merrithew's Hill with a heavy load and four oxen; the cattle wouldn't haul for him; he licked his goad up about 'em, and hollered, and screeched, and cursed. They wouldn't haul; he looked round for a stake, but it was stone wall both sides of the road, and he had to go a good ways down, over the first little rise, to get one. Lion Ben comes to the top of the hill; he'd heard the screeching; saw the team standing there. Frank Chase told me this; he was picking rocks in their field, and saw the whole of it. He said the Lion came along, went to the cattle, patted 'em, lifted up the yokes, pulled up a last year's mullein stalk, flourished that over 'em a few times, put his pretty little shoulders to the wheel, and spoke to the cattle. Frank said he didn't speak loud enough for him to hear; and they went right up the hill with it; then Ben squats down behind the log fence. Joe came back with his stake to whale 'em, and there was no team there. Frank said it was comical enough to see him rub his eyes and stare round. Bime by he went up the hill. There was his team. Frank said he looked under the load, on the top of the load, and everywhere. Frank held his tongue, and Joe allers thought that the cattle started for fear of the licking they would get when he come back."

"Did he ever find out?" asked Walter.

"Yes; the Lion met him one night at the store, and told him, before all hands, that if ever he saw him beat cattle with a stake, or heard tell on't, he'd pay his respects to him. I reckon you kin guess what Lion Ben's respects would be."

"All the satisfaction," said the captain, "I wish of the villain that sold and the villain that bought Peterson is, that Ben might get his mud-hooks on them both. If the blood and brains wouldn't fly when he smashed their heads together, I'll never guess again. But about the frames, Sewall?"

"Wal, the upshot was, the planters almost quarrelled to see who should git 'em, they were so taken with 'em, and gave him his own price. The old man said he wished he'd loaded with 'em."

"Just the things for us, Sewall," said the captain. "I've heard people speak in meeting, when I thought they had better have held their tongues, but you have spoken to the purpose."

"The old cap'n," continued Lancaster, "said he might have made his jack if he had only brought bolts, locks, and cheap hinges for doors, cause sometimes they want to lock the darkies up; and also if he had brought handsome ones for the planters' houses, and nails, he might have thribbled his money; but that his wits allers come afterwards he seemed quite in a passion about it, cause he hadn't made more, when he'd made enough a'ready to satisfy any reasonable person."

"Thank you, Sewall; we'll try and not have our wits come afterwards."

"The greatest difficulty with me at the outset," said Walter, "is, where to find a vessel."

"I'll settle that matter at once—charter the Perseverance of Ben. I can rig her so that nothing of her size can catch her; and a better sea-boat never swam. No matter how hard it blows; she'll lay to like a duck, go dry, and work to windward all the time."

"She may do well in the bays and along shore, bit she is old, and must be rotten."

"Last fall Ben took her over to Pleasant Cove. He, John, and Charlie overhauled her thoroughly, made a winter's job of it, put in new ceiling, drove a lot of fastening into her, laid a new deck, and put in a new mainmast and bowsprit. All the rot they found was under the bowsprit and two timbers in the counter. While I am here, I am going to get new rigging and sails for her. Ben would have her name put on in gold leaf. I thought it was nonsense for a fisherman; but he sets his life by that craft because she belonged to his nearest friend, John Strout, who was drowned."

"But will Mr. Ben let us have her?"

"Tell him that James Peterson is a slave in Martinique, and that you want the schooner to go out there and rescue him, and see whether he won't let you have her."

"Don't it seem a pity, Captain Rhines," said Ned, "when such awful things are done as Aldrich did, that there couldn't be somebody like Lion Ben around, to give them just what they deserve?"

"There is somebody round."

"Yes, sir; but he don't interfere."

"Not all the time, perhaps. He has no occasion to be in haste, but can lay his hand on a villain next year, or a hundred years from now, as well as to-day. Depend upon it, my boy, Aldrich will get his broth as hot as he can sup it, and, perhaps, a good deal of it as he goes along."

"O, I am so glad we are going to have the Perseverance, not only because she is fast and a good sea-boat, but it was her that you took us off the raft with."

"Yes, my brave sailor-boy," said the captain, taking Ned on his knee (for his jovial, sanguine temperament was stirred to its depths by the safe arrival of the brigantine, the prospect of liberating Peterson, and the noble sentiments and practical ability manifested by the boys), "had not the schooner been just where I could lay my hand upon her, you must have perished; nor do I know of another vessel, that, in such a sea and wind, would have towed the raft clear of the breakers; indeed, it was touch and go. Had the foremast gone overboard three minutes before it did, you would not be sitting on my knee to-night. I was frightened myself, after I was safe on shore, and the pressure was taken off."

"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Griffin," observed Captain Brown, noticing that Walter was preoccupied.

"Out with it, my boy," said Captain Rhines.

"I was thinking over something Sewall's conversation put in my head, not clear to me. I have not got it shaped as yet. But if we can get to Martinique with the kind of cargo Sewall speaks of, and Peterson is alive, I feel sure that I know what to do when there."

"What is that?" asked Captain Rhines, pointing to the companion-way.

"It's daylight," said Ned; "we've talked all night; it is break of day."