“Can you see them yet?” asked Fernando of Williams, who sat well up in the stern holding the helm.

“Yes.”

“How far are they away?”

“Two or three miles.”

“And still a-coming?”

“Yes.”

“Plague take ’em!” growled Sukey, “why do they follow us so persistently?”

“May be they think to get us when we go ashore; but, bad luck to thim, they’ll find it tough if they come afther us.”

“Fernando, I wish we had our rifles,” growled Sukey.  “Wouldn’t we make it unprofitable for the redcoats!”

Fernando was rather non-communicative, and sat in the bow of the boat lost in painful meditation.  He had shed blood.  It was the first, and, although in that age it was thought highly honorable, he felt an inward consciousness that dueling was both cowardly and brutal.  Fear of being branded a coward had nerved him to face the pistol of his antagonist.  It is not true courage that makes the duelist.  There is no more honor, gentility, or courage in dueling than in robbing a safe.  The greatest coward living may be a burglar, so he may, from fear of public scorn, fight a duel.  Fernando had much to regret.  He felt that his social standing had been lowered; yet he was happy in the thought that the duel had had no fatal results.  Could he ever return to the school?  Could he ever return to his home and face his Christian mother?  He was roused from his painful reverie by a loud laugh on the part of Terrence.  He turned his eyes toward the jolly fellow and found him convulsed with mirth.

“What ails you, Terrence?” he asked.

“Did you aim at the spot you hit?”

“No; I aimed at a more vital part; but, thank God, I missed, and now I am happy.”

“It’s more than the lieutenant is, I’m thinkin’.”

“But, Terrence, the most serious question is, what are we going to do?”

“Now that’s sensible.  Let me see, Misther Williams, what’s the nearest port?  Isn’t there a town above on this coast?”

“Yes, not more than ten miles away around that point o’ land we’ll find a willage.”

“Why not put in there?”

“Yes, we kin; but, hang it, how am I a-goin’ to git back to Baltimore?”

“Oh, that’s aisy enough.  Run in after night.”

“Yes, an’ be sunk by the blasted Britishers!”

“He won’t know ye after dark.”

“But, Terrence, what are we to do?” asked Fernando.

“It’s do, is it?—­faith, do nothin’!”

“But the academy?”

“It will get along without us.”

“But can we get along without it?”

“Aisy, me frind; don’t be alarmed.  We’ll be back in a week or a fortnight at most.  It will all blow over, and no one will ask us any questions.  Lave it all to me.”

Fernando had almost come to the conclusion that he had left too much to his friend.  Terrence had only got him out of one scrape into another, until he had come to mistrust the good judgment and sound discretion of his friend.  Not that he doubted the good intentions of Terrence.  He had as kind a heart as ever beat in the breast of a young Irishman of twenty-three; but his propensity to mischievous pranks was continually getting him and his friends into trouble.