"If you will take the chances, I can, Colonel Passford. If you will go
on board of my ship to-morrow afternoon, and sail with me, I have no
doubt we shall overhaul a steamer bound to England in the course of a
week, for I will get into the track of these vessels."
The agent promptly accepted this proposition, and soon after the
conference ended, though not till the listener had taken himself out of
the way, Christy had turned over in his mind a plan to terminate very
suddenly his uncle's mission to purchase steamers, and to obtain
possession of his drafts. M. Rubempre was adroit enough to accomplish
almost anything, and he intended to have the detective make the
colonel's acquaintance, and induce him to embark with them in the
Eleuthera, pretending that he was going to France himself, and intended
to intercept a French steamer from Progreso, whose course lay but a
short distance south of the Bermudas.
But the plan suggested by Captain Rombold, and adopted by Colonel
Passford, saved him from what the young officer regarded as his duty in
the deception and capture of his uncle. When the Bellevite, while she
was still the yacht of Captain Horatio Passford, had gone to the
vicinity of Mobile, to the home of his father's brother, Homer had done
all in his power to capture the steamer for the use of his government,
and had made war upon her with armed vessels.
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