"Mr.Pennant reports that your passengers claimed that they were peaceable citizens, and that your sloop was bound to Appalachicola.

Was that true ?" "Just then they were peaceable enough; but they were not when Captain Flanger ordered them to fire on your men.

Colonel Passford and I were the only peaceable citizens on board of the sloop, and I was no citizen at all," replied the skipper, laughing.
"You are one now, at any rate.

Were you bound to Appalachicola ?" "Not just then, captain," chuckled Mike, who seemed to be amused and delighted to feel that he was telling the secrets of his late companions.
"We were going to Appalachicola after a while, where we were to pilot out some vessels loaded with cotton." "Then there are cotton vessels at that port, are there ?" asked Christy, pricking up his ears at this suggestion.
"Half a dozen of them, and a steamer to tow them to sea." "Are you sure of this information, Mike ?" "I did not see them there, Captain Passford; but it was your uncle's business to look after them, as he was doing in St.Andrew's Bay." "Then my uncle has vessels in that bay which are to run out ?" inquired Christy, deeply interested in the revelations of the skipper.
"Only one, sir: a steamer of five hundred tons, called the Floridian." "Precisely; that is the vessel we are after.

But what was my uncle doing on board of your sloop, with Captain Flanger and the rest of your party ?" "My master was the captain of the Floridian, and we came out here to see if there was any blockader near, that had come up in the fog.