"
"You have a _country_, Marble; and that is the next thing to
family and home--overshadows all."
"Ay, and I'll have a country here. This will be America, having been
discovered by Americans, and in their possession. You will leave me
the buntin', and I'll show the stars and stripes of a 4th of July,
just as you will show 'em, in some other part of the world. I was born
Yankee, at least, and I'll die Yankee, I've sailed under that flag,
boy, ever since the year '77, and will not sail under another you may
depend on it."
"I never could justify myself to the laws for leaving a man behind me
in such a place."
"Then I'll run, and that will make all right. But, you know well
enough, boy, that leaving a captain is one thing, and leaving a man
another."
"And what shall I tell all your acquaintances, those who have sailed
with you so often and so long, has become of their old ship-mate?"
"Tell 'em that the man who was once _found_, is now _lost_,"
answered Marble, bitterly. "But I am not such a fool as to think
myself of so much importance as you seem to imagine. The only persons
who will consider the transaction of any interest will be the
newspaper gentry, and they will receive it only as _news_, and
thank you about half as much as they would for a murder, or a robbery,
or the poisoning of a mother and six little children.
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