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| CAPTAIN F. AND THE MA YOU OF NORFOLK 167 ing, the rumor was flying all over town that a number of slaves had escaped, which cheated a general excitement a degree less, perhaps, than if the citizens had been visited by an earthquake. The mayor of the city with a posse of officers with axes aud long spears repaired to Captain F.'s boat. The fearless commander received his Honor very coolly, and as gracefully as the circumstances would admit The mayor gave him to understand who he was, and by what authority he appeared on the boat, and what he meant to do. " Very well," replied Captain F., " here I am and this is my boat, go ahead and search." His Honor with his deputies looked quickly around, and then an order went forth from the mayor to "spear the wheat thoroughly." The deputies obeyed the command with alacrity. But the spears brought neither blood nor groans, and the sagacious mayor obviously concluded that he was "barking up the wrong tree." But the mayor was not there for nothing. " Take the axes and go to work,'* was the next order; and the axe was used with terrible effect by one of the deputies. The deck and other parts of the boat were chopped and split; no greater judgment beiug exercised when using the axe than when spearing the wheat; Captain F. all the while wearing au air of utter indifference or rather of entire composure. Indeed every step they took proved conclusively that they were wholly ignorant with regard to boat searching. At this point, with remarkable shrewdness, Captain F. saw wherein he could still further confuse them by a bold strategical move. As though about out of patience with the mayor's blunders, the captain instantly reminded his Honor that he had "stood still long enough" while his boat was being "damaged, chopped up," &c. "Now if you want to search," continued he, "give me the axe, and then point out the spot you want opened and I will open it for you very quick." While uttering these words he presented, as he was capable of doing, an indignant and defiant countenance, and intimated that it mattered not where or when a man died provided he was in the right, and as though he wished to give particularly strong emphasis to what he was saying, he raised the axe, and brought it down edge foremost on the deck with startling effect, at the same time causing the splinters to fly from the boards. The mayor aud his posse seemed, if not dreadfully frightened, completely confounded, and by the time Captain F. had again brought down his axe with increased power, demanding where they would have him open, they looked as though it was time for them to retire, and in a few minutes after they actually gave up the search and left the boat without finding a soul. Daniel in the lions' den was not safer than were the twenty-one passengers secreted on Captain F.'s boat. The law had been carried out with a vengeance, but did not avail with this skilled captain. The " five dollars" were paid for being searched, the amount which was lawfully required of every captain sailing from Virginia. And the captain steered direct for the City of Brotherly Love. The wind of heaven favoring the good cause, he arrived safely in due time, and delivered |