Then I heard the sound of oars as the messenger-boat was pulled to the next craft, and Darius said hurriedly:

"Lads, I'll admit that there are a good many vessels in this 'ere fleet what can sail clean around the Avenger; but let's show the commodore that there's no crew under him who will obey orders more smartly. Turn out lively, my bully boys! Jim, you an' Dody get home the anchor, an' the rest of us will tail on to the halliards!"

Darius had a willing crew if there was any opportunity to win the praise of the commander, and he was not yet at an end of giving his orders when we began work.

I venture to say that within sixty seconds from the time we were hailed, the Avenger was making way, rubbing past this craft and that as she literally forced a pa.s.sage through the fleet, and all this before any signs of life could be seen on the other vessels. Even the Scorpion was yet lying idly at her moorings.

"That's what I call a good start, lads," the old man said when we were well clear of the flotilla, and the pungy forged ahead in good style under the force of a fairly strong night breeze. "We're first under sail, an' it'll go hard if we don't come to anchor off Pig Point ahead of any one else."

"Why do you suppose this move is being made?" I asked, for it smacked much of running away from the enemy, to retreat so far up stream, and Darius had made us believe that Joshua Barney never retreated.

"The commander has got some good plan in his head, an' it'll come out before we're many days older," the old man replied confidently.

"But surely we're tryin' to get away from the enemy," Jerry suggested.

"Ay, it has that look just now, I'll admit; but you'll see some big scheme in it very soon, or I'm a Dutchman, which I ain't."

"There's a boat dead ahead, with four men rowin' an' one steerin',"

Jim Freeman, who had stationed himself in the tow as a lookout, came aft to report.

"Some smarty who's tryin' to make the anchorage first," Darius growled; "but with this wind we can sail two miles to his one, so it won't be that craft which will beat us in."

By this time we were well up with the boat, and to our surprise it was Commodore Barney himself who hailed:

"Sloop ahoy! Pa.s.s a line, and I'll come aboard."

He got the line smartly enough, and when he came over the rail Darius saluted, as he said:

"We counted you were aboard the Scorpion, sir."

"That schooner won't get off for ten minutes or more, and I allowed that the other vessels would be handled in the same leisurely fashion, so, I pulled ahead, thinking to be at the rendezvous before the flotilla was well under way. You lads obeyed orders smartly."

"It's a way they have, sir," Darius said with a grin, as he looked over the rail to see that the commodore's boat was being towed where she would be the least drag on the pungy.

Then it was that I tried to play the host, by asking the commander if he would go into the cabin.

"It isn't a very nice place, sir; but it's clean, and you may be able to get some sleep."

"I'll venture to say it's as good a sea-parlor as I, or any other man, deserves, lad; but I'm not needing sleep just now, therefore will stay on deck."

Then he fell to pacing the starboard quarter, as if he had been on his own ship at sea, and we lads gathered well forward in order that he might see we understood somewhat of the respect due a commander.

CHAPTER XII.

SUSPENSE.

It is now in my mind to set down what may be dry reading for some who chance to see this labor of love on which I am engaged, and yet if any one desires to know exactly why it was the Britishers could destroy the capital of our country, and come off very nearly scot-free, it is absolutely necessary to become familiar with all our means of defense at this time.

Therefore it is that I shall copy that which was published many years later, by Mr. Lossing in his "War of 1812," and in so doing the reader will ask how it is that I am writing this poor apology for a tale in the year of grace 1814, and yet putting into it facts which were made public many years later?

The answer to the riddle is not as puzzling as it would seem. I am now man grown, with children of my own. Many years ago I put together this story, and to-day, desiring that my own boys may read it, I am running over the leaves to add here or there that which may make plain what I, a lad of seventeen years, overlooked at the time, or believed to be of little importance. How strange it is that the same thing appears entirely different when viewed from the standpoints of a man and a lad!

This is what Mr. Lossing says concerning the time of which I wrote when everything was fresh in my mind, and the sense of a wrong done this country by England still rankling deep in my heart:

"On the 6th of August (1814) the small British squadron in the Chesapeake was reinforced by a fleet of twenty-one vessels under Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, the senior commander on the American station. These were soon joined by another under Commodore Sir Charles Malcolm. These vessels bore several thousand land troops commanded by General Ross, an Irish officer, and one of Wellington's most active leaders.

Washington and Baltimore appear to have been chosen objects of attack simultaneously. A part of the British naval force, under Sir Peter Parker, went up the Chesapeake toward Baltimore, and another portion, under Captain Gordon, went up the Potomac.

"At that time Commodore Barney, with a flotilla of thirteen armed barges and the schooner Scorpion, with an aggregate of about five hundred men, was in the Patuxent river. His vessels had been chased out of the Chesapeake, and blockaded in St.

Leonard's Bay. Of this confinement they were relieved by some artillery under Colonel Henry Carbery, with which he drove away the Loire, the blockading frigate, when the released flotilla went up the Patuxent, first to Benedict, and then to Nottingham, that it might be within co-operating distance of both Washington and Baltimore.

"Seeing this, the British determined to capture or destroy it, and on the 18th of August a force of a little more than five thousand men, composed of regulars, marines, and negroes went up the Patuxent, and landed at Benedict with three cannon, under cover of an armed brig. Most of the other large British vessels were below, some of them aground, and all too heavy to ascend the comparatively shallow stream.

"Barney, then at Nottingham, promptly informed the Navy Department of the movement, and of a boast of the British admiral that he would destroy the American flotilla, and dine in Washington on the following Sunday. General Winder, by direction of the War Department, immediately ordered General Samuel Smith's division (the Third) of the Maryland militia into actual service. He also called upon General John P. Van Ness, commander of the militia of the District of Columbia, for two brigades, to be encamped near Alexandria; and he sent a circular letter to all the brigadiers of the Maryland militia, asking for volunteers to the amount of one-half their respective commands.

"By his orders, his adjutant-general, Hite, issued a stirring appeal to the citizens to come forward, 'without regard to sacrifices and privation,' in defense of the national capital.

Winder also asked General Stricker, of Baltimore, to send to Washington his volunteer regiments of infantry and his rifle battalion.

"The veteran patriot, General Smith, promptly responded to the call of the government. He at once issued a division order, in which he gave notice of the invasion, and directed the whole of General Stansbury's brigade to be held in readiness for active service, adding, 'the third brigade is now under the pay of the United States, in its service, and subject to the Articles of War.' That corps General Smith declared to be 'the finest set of men he ever saw.' They paraded at four o'clock the same day, and on the following morning General Stansbury left Baltimore for Washington with thirteen hundred of his corps. Another force, under Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Sterett, consisting of the Fifth Regiment of Baltimore Volunteers, Major Pinkney's rifle battalion, and the artillery companies of Captains Myers and Magruder, left Baltimore on the evening of the 20th, and joined Stansbury on the evening of the 23d.

"With wise precaution, General Smith ordered the Eleventh brigade and Colonel Moore's cavalry to hold themselves in readiness to march to Baltimore at a moment's warning, for it seemed probable that the enemy would strike at both cities simultaneously.

"The British in the meantime had moved up the Patuxent from Benedict, the land troops being accompanied by a flotilla of launches and barges that kept abreast of them. The naval forces were under the command of the notorious marauder, c.o.c.kburn.

They reached Lower Marlborough on the 21st, when Barney's flotilla, then in charge of Lieutenant Frazier and a sufficient number of men to destroy it if necessary, moved up to Pig Point, where some of the vessels grounded in the shallow water.

"For the defense of Washington the whole force was about seven thousand strong, of whom nine hundred were enlisted men. The cavalry did not exceed four hundred in number. The little army had twenty-six pieces of cannon, of which twenty were only six-pounders. This force, if concentrated, would have been competent to roll back the invasion had the commanding officer been untrammeled by the interference of the President and his Cabinet."

All that was written when the facts of the case were well known, and now the story shall be taken up as I wrote it when a boy.

It was not all plain sailing from Nottingham to Pig Point, for the water was shallow, and there were many places where it was necessary to handle even a pungy very tenderly in order to avoid taking the ground.

While Darius was not well acquainted with the stream, he had a sailorly eye for bad places, and never made the mistake of trying to jump the little vessel where she was likely to be held hard and fast.

Many times were we forced to take to the canoe in order to pull the Avenger's nose around more sharply than could be done by the helm, and when it came to such labor of pulling and hauling the commodore lent a hand as if we had been his equal in station.

And we did work lively, for a fact, hoping to have our anchor down before any other craft could arrive, therefore no one complained when Darius called on us for labor which might have been saved at the expense of three or four minutes in time.

The commander was even more eager than were we, to arrive at the appointed rendezvous speedily, and we could readily guess that some big change was to be made in the general plans, although what it might be we came far from guessing, since all of us, save Darius Thorpe, believed he was simply running away from the enemy.

Well, we succeeded in doing as we wished in regard to beating out the remainder of the fleet, for when we came to anchor off the point and snugged everything down Bristol fashion, there were no signs that a single craft was following.

Commodore Barney was chafing because of the delay, as could be seen by the way in which he paced the deck, rubbing his hands from time to time as he gazed down stream in vain for some token of the laggards.

"It's only a deep water sailor who obeys smartly, Darius," the commander said, halting in his nervous walk to face the old man, and Jerry and I, who were seated on the main-hatch, p.r.i.c.ked up our ears, for it seemed positive we were to learn somewhat of future doings.