tormented, he cried out: "'Tis a lie!
'Tis all a monstrous lie! He is a beggarly runaway servant whom I took
in out of the rain and fed and housed--to have him turn thus against me
and strike the hand that has benefited him!"

"Sir," replied our young gentleman, with a moderate and easy voice,
"what I tell you is no lie, but the truth. If any here misdoubts my
veracity, see, here is a letter received by the last packet from my
honored father. You, Colonel Belford, know his handwriting perfectly
well. Look at this and tell me if I am deceiving you."

At these words Colonel Belford took the letter with a hand that
trembled as though with palsy. He cast his eyes over it, but it is to
be doubted whether he read a single word therein contained.
Nevertheless, he saw enough to satisfy his doubts, and he could have
wept, so great was the relief from the miserable and overwhelming
anxiety that had taken possession of him since the beginning of his
brother's discourse.

Meantime our young gentleman, turning to Captain Obadiah, cried out,
"Sir, I am indeed an instrument of Providence sent hither to call your
wickedness to account," and this he spoke with so virtuous an air as to
command the admiration of all who heard him. "I have," he continued,
"lived with you now for nearly three odious months, and I know every
particular of your habits and such circumstances of your life as you
are aware of. I now proclaim how you have wickedly and sacrilegiously
turned the Old Free Grace Meeting-House into a slave-pen, whence for
above a year you have conducted a nefarious and most inhuman commerce
with the West Indies."

At these words Captain Obadiah, being thrown so suddenly upon his
defence, forced himself to give forth a huge and boisterous laugh.
"What then?" he cried. "What wickedness is there in that? What if I
have provided a few sugar plantations with negro slaves? Are there not
those here present who would do no better if the opportunity offered?
The place is mine, and I break no law by a bit of quiet slave-trading."

"I marvel," cried our young gentleman, still in the same virtuous
strain--"I marvel that you can pass over so wicked a thing thus easily.
I myself have counted above fifty graves of your victims on Pig and Sow
Point. Repent, sir, while there is yet time."

But to this adjuration Captain Obadiah returned no other reply than to
burst into a most wicked, impudent laugh.

"Is it so?" cried our young gentleman. "Do