I have received a despatch which will prevent me from leaving Jacksonville for a few days. You will proceed to New Orleans as soon as you get this letter; and I will go there by land with my family. For reasons I will explain to you some other time, I want you to keep out of the way of the Sylvania. I have made a bet that the Islander will get to New Orleans first; and I expect, from what you said, you will win the bet for me. This letter will be delivered to you by my friend, Mr. Boomsby, who will take passage with you; and you will treat him as well as you would me."
"If those instructions are not as plain talk as any shipmaster could desire, I should like to know what would be plain," continued Captain Blastblow, as he finished the reading of the letter. "I hove up the anchor at once, and rang to go ahead. I was ordered to keep out of the way of the Sylvania, and I have done my best to avoid her."
"But I did not write that letter, Captain Blastblow," repeated the owner; and by this time we were all rather amused at the straightforward earnestness of the captain of the Islander. "Let me see the letter, if you please."
The captain handed him the letter. Colonel Shepard examined it critically. He shook his head as he did so.
"I must acknowledge that the writing looks very much like mine," he said, after he had read it through and examined it in every part. "Who could have written it?"
"Nick Boomsby wrote it, without a doubt," I replied. "I went to school with him, and he was a good penman, though that was about all he was as a scholar."
"Is that my friend, Mr. Boomsby?" asked the colonel, laughing heartily.
"The same person; and he has become a swell of the first magnitude," I replied. "If I had known, or suspected, before we got to Key West, that Nick was on board of her, I could have explained the strange conduct of the Islander, and why she so carefully kept out of our way."
I gave a full account of the robbery of the bank messenger in the saloon of Nick's father, dwelling upon the efforts Nick had made to arrest Buckner. I stated that he had tried to obtain a passage to New Orleans in the Sylvania, that I had refused to let him go in her, and had taken care that he did not become a stowaway on board of her. I added that Nick told me of his intention to run away from his home, and seek his fortune in some other part of the country.