On The Blockade | Page 9

Captain Passford."
"I have no fault to find this time, Dave."
"I should hope not, sir," added Dave, looking as solemn as a sleepy owl. "I would jump overboard before I would offend you, Massa Christy."
"You need not jump overboard just yet," replied the captain, with a pleasant smile, intended to remove the fears of the steward. "But I want to make a new rule for you, Dave."
"Thank you, sir; if you sit up nights to make rules for me, I will obey all of them; and I would give you the whole State of Florida before I would break one of them on purpose, Massa Christy."
"Massa Christy!" exclaimed the captain, laughing.
"Massa Captain Passford!" shouted Dave, hastening to correct his over-familiarity.
"I don't object to your calling me Christy when we are alone, for I look upon you as my friend, and I have tried to treat you as a gentleman, though you are a subordinate. But are you going to be a nigger again, and call white men 'Massa?' I told you not to use that word."
"I done forget it when I got excited because I was afraid I had offended you," pleaded the steward.
"Your education is vastly superior to most people of your class, and you should not belittle yourself. This is my cabin; and I shall sometimes have occasion to talk confidentially with my officers. Do you understand what I mean, Dave?"
"Perfectly, Captain Passford: I know what it is to talk confidently and what it is to talk confidentially, and you do both, sir," replied the steward.
"But I am sometimes more confidential than confident. Now you must do all your work in my state room when I am not in the cabin, and this is the new rule," said Christy, as he went out of the room. "I know that I can trust you, Dave; but when I tell a secret I want to know to how many persons I am telling it. You may finish your work now;" and he closed the door.
Christy could not have explained why he did so if it had been required of him, but he went directly to the door leading out into the companion way, and suddenly threw it wide open, drawing the porti��re aside at the same time. Not a little to his surprise, for he had not expected it, he found a man there; and the intruder was down on his knees, as if in position to place his ear at the keyhole. This time the young commander was indignant, and without stopping to consider as long as the precepts of his father required, he seized the man by the collar, and dragged him into the cabin.
"What are you doing there?" demanded Christy in the heat of his indignation.
The intruder, who was a rather stout man, began to shake his head with all his might, and to put the fore finger of his right hand on his mouth and one of his ears. He was big enough to have given the young commander a deal of trouble if he had chosen to resist the force used upon him; but he appeared to be tame and submissive. He did not speak, but he seemed to be exerting himself to the utmost to make himself understood. Flint had resumed his seat at the table, facing the door, and in spite of himself, apparently, he began to laugh.
"That is Pink Mulgrum, Captain Passford," said he, evidently to prevent his superior from misinterpreting the lightness of his conduct. "As you are aware, he is deaf and dumb."
[Illustration: Mulgrum at the captain's door.]
"I see who he is now," replied Christy, who had just identified the man. "He may be deaf and dumb, but he seems to have a great deal of business at the door of my cabin."
"I have no doubt he is as deaf as the keel of the ship, and I have not yet heard him speak a word," added the first lieutenant. "But he is a stout fellow, very patriotic, and willing to work."
"All that may be, but I have found him once before hanging around that door to-day."
At this moment Mulgrum took from his pocket a tablet of paper and a pencil, and wrote upon it, "I am a deaf mute, and I don't know what you are talking about." Christy read it, and then wrote, "What were you doing at the door?" He replied that he had been sent by Mr. Lillyworth to clean the brasses on the door. He was then dismissed.
CHAPTER IV
A DEAF AND DUMB MYSTERY
As he dismissed Mulgrum, Christy tore off the leaf from the tablet on which both of them had written before he handed it back to the owner. For a few moments, he said nothing, and had his attention fixed on the paper in his