I dodged down the coast by Pernambuco, but lost you entirely in
June,--some damned Indian expedition, I believe. But I met a fellow
at New Orleans who had seen you at St. Louis, and so I tracked away
south--"

"And, in one word, having found me, what was the cause of so much
solicitude, sir?" said Cashel, who felt by no means comfortable at such
a hot and unwearied pursuit.

"This can all be better said in the house," interposed Don Rica, who,
relieved of any uneasiness on his own account, had suddenly resumed his
habitual quiet demeanor.

"So I 'm thinking too!" said the traveller; "but let me first land my
portmanteau; all the papers are there. I have not lost sight of it since
I started."

The parcels were carefully removed under his own inspection, and,
accompanied by Don Pedro Rica and Roland, the little man entered the
villa.

There could be no greater contrast than that between the calm and
placid bearing Don Pedro had now assumed, and the agitated and anxious
appearance which Cashel exhibited. The very last interview he had
sustained in that same spot still dwelt upon his mind; and when he
declined Don Pedro's polite request to be seated, and stood with folded
arms before the table, which the traveller had now covered with his
papers, a prisoner awaiting the words of his judgment could not have
endured a more intense feeling of anxiety.

"'Roland Cashel, born in York, a. d. 18--, son of Godfrey Cashel and
Sarah, his wife,'" read the little man; then murmured to himself,
"Certificate of baptism, signed by Joshua Gorgeous, Prebendary of the
Cathedral; all right, so far. Now we come to the wanderings. Your father
was quartered at Port-au-Prince, in the year 18--, I believe?"

"He was. I was then nine years old," said Cashel.

"Quite correct; he died there, I understand?"

Cashel assented by a nod.

"Upon which event you joined, or was supposed to join, the 'Brown Peg,'
a sloop in the African trade, wrecked off Fernando Po same winter?"

"Yes; she was scuttled by the second mate, in a mutiny. But what has
all this secret history of me to mean? Did you come here, sir, to glean
particulars to write my life and adventures?"

"I crave your pardon most humbly, Mr. Cashel," said the little man, in
a perfect agony of humiliation. "I was only recapitulating a
few collateral circumstances, by way of proof. I was, so to say,
testing--that is, I was--"

"Satisfying yourself as to this gentleman's identity," ad