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"It is true, then?" Frank looked up with a half-glad, half-disappointed expression. He was disappointed to know that so good a friend was not the donor of the watch, and yet glad that he had not wronged him by gambling it away. "Then, Captain Edney, I wish you would tell me what to do. I have done the worst and meanest thing. I have lost the watch." And he went on to relate how he had lost it.
"Then how shall I ever get it?" asked Frank, in despair. For he did not wish his mother to know of the circumstances; and to buy the watch back when he was paid off again, would be to withhold money which he felt belonged to her. Captain Edney could not solve the difficulty; and with that burden upon his mind, Frank returned to his bunk with his letters.
"What makes you dizzy?" "Boys gimme some drink, I donowat." "The boys gave you some drink? You don't know what? Tucket," said Captain Edney, "what's all this? Who has been getting that boy drunk?" Seth perceived that any attempt to disguise the truth would be futile, except so far as it might be possible by ingenious subtleties to shield his companions.
"We're fairly on their flank, and not discovered yet!" "How far did you go?" asked Captain Edney. "To the clearing, which is just there where the woods look lighter. I could see the guns of the battery blazing away, and rebels in the woods supporting it. They're too busy to notice us." "We're discovered, though!" said Captain Edney as a bullet came chipping its way among the twigs above them.
"No, sir, I do not know it ," Frank reflecting as he spoke, that a man cannot really know any thing of which he has not been an eye-witness, and comforting his conscience with the fact that he had not seen the turkeys stolen. "Now," Captain Edney did not betray by look or word whether he believed or doubted the boy's assertion, "tell me who was with you in the woods." "Seth Tucket, sir."
He showed him his new tent, his knapsack and accoutrements, and his handsome drum. He introduced him to the old drummer, and to Atwater, and to Captain Edney. The latter invited them both into his tent, and was so kind to them that Frank almost shed tears of gratitude, to think that his father could go home and tell what a favorite he was with his captain.
A dry fence of cypress and pine rails is, without hesitation, appropriated to feed the fires of the bivouac; and the chilled, soaked soldiers gather around them to get warm and dry. "My brave fellows," says Captain Edney, passing among them, "do the best you can for yourselves for the night. Try to keep warm, and get what rest and sleep you can. You will need all your strength to-morrow."
Captain Edney himself came to investigate the matter, accompanied by the secessionist. "That's the boy," said Buckley, with determined vindictiveness, when Frank was arraigned before him. Frank could not help looking a little pale, for he felt that he was in a bad scrape, and how he was to get out of it, without either lying or betraying his accomplices, he could not see.
O, Captain Edney! have the train wait until this couple can be married. It won't take a minute!" The case of the lovers was by this time well understood, not only by Captain Edney and Mr. Egglestone, but also by the conductor of the train and scores of soldiers and citizens. An interested throng crowded to witness the ceremony.
The waves were not running sufficiently high in the sound, however, to render the theory of seasickness very plausible; and, to satisfy his mind, Captain Edney approached Frank's bunk, putting to him the same question.
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