"Give you my sword!" exclaimed Captain Rowly.
"It is a formality rather insisted upon on such occasions as the
present."
"I don't see it."
"You don't? Then I must say that I think you are rather obtuse, Captain
Rowly, and I shall be under the painful necessity of helping you to see
it. As a prisoner of war--"
"As what?" demanded the soldier.
"I regard you as a prisoner of war, and I must trouble you to give me
your sword in token of your surrender."
"I was not taken in a battle."
"Very true; your men fought the battle after you had left them. I have
no more time to argue the question. Will you surrender your sword, or
will you have the battle now? Two or three of my men will accommodate
you with a fight on a small scale if you insist upon it."
"Don't you intend to send me back to the Keys?" asked the captain, whose
military education appeared to have been neglected, so that his ideas of
a state of war were very vague.
"I have not the remotest idea of doing anything of the sort. Your sword,
if you please."
"This sword was presented to me by the citizens of my town--"
"Here, Boxie and Lanon, relieve this gentleman of his sword," added
Christy, as he saw the young lady coming up the companion way.
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