blockade runners, or as naval vessels flying the Confederate flag.
Whatever your orders, Christy, don't allow yourself to be carried away
by any Quixotic enthusiasm."

"I don't think I have any more than half as much audacity as Captain
Breaker said I had. As I look upon it, my first duty is to deliver my
ship over to the flag-officer in the Gulf; and I suppose I shall be
instructed to pick up a Confederate cruiser or a blockade runner, if
one should cross my course."

"Obey your orders, Christy, whatever they may be. Now, I should like
to look over the Bronx before I go on shore," said Captain Passford.
"I think you said she was of about two hundred tons."

"That was what they said down south; but she is about three hundred
tons," replied Christy, as he proceeded to show his father the cabin
in which the conversation had taken place.

The captain's cabin was in the stern of the vessel, according to the
orthodox rule in naval vessels. Of course it was small, though it seemed
large to Christy who had spent so much of his leisure time in the cabin
of the Florence, his sailboat on the Hudson. It was substantially fitted
up, with little superfluous ornamentation; but it was a complete parlor,
as a landsman would regard it. From it, on the port side opened the
captain's state room, which was quite ample for a vessel no larger
than the Bronx. Between it and the pantry on the starboard side, was
a gangway leading from the foot of the companion way, by which the
captain's cabin and the ward room were accessible from the quarter deck.

Crossing the gangway at the foot of the steps, Christy led the way