the dreary
stretch of roofs and down into a dingy court of Bernard's Inn below, when
suddenly there arose a commotion on the stairs, as of a man mounting
hastily. The door was almost flung from its hinges, some one caught me
by the shoulders, gazed eagerly into my face, and drew back. For a space
I thought myself dreaming. I searched my memory, and the name came. Had
it been Dorothy, or Mr. Carvel himself, I could not have been more
astonished, and my knees weakened under me.

"Jack!" I exclaimed; "Lord Comyn!"

He seized my hand. "Yes; Jack, whose life you saved, and no other," he
cried, with a sailor's impetuosity. "My God, Richard! it was true,
then; and you have been in this place for three weeks!"

"For three weeks," I repeated.

He looked at me, at John Paul, who was standing by in bewilderment, and
then about the grimy, cobwebbed walls of the dark garret, and then turned
his back to hide his emotion, and so met the bailiff, who was coming in.

"For how much are these gentlemen in your books?" he demanded hotly.

"A small matter, your Lordship,--a mere trifle," said the man, bowing.

"How much, I say?"

"Twenty-two guineas, five shillings, and eight pence, my Lord, counting
debts, and board,--and interest," the bailiff glibly replied; for he had
no doubt taken off the account when he spied his Lordship's coach. "And
I was very good to Mr. Carvel and the captain, as your Lordship will
discover--"

"D--n your goodness!" said my Lord, cutting him short.

And he pulled out a wallet and threw some pieces at the bailiff, bidding
him get change with all haste. "And now, Richard," he added, with a
glance of disgust about him, "pack up, and we'll out of this cursed
hole!"

"I have nothing to pack, my Lord," I said.

"My Lord! Jack, I have told you, or I leave you here."

"Well, then, Jack, and you will," said I, overflowing with thankfulness
to God for the friends He had bestowed upon me. "But before we go a
step, Jack, you must know the man but for whose bravery I should long
ago have been dead of fever and ill-treatment in the Indies, and whose
generosity has brought him hither. My Lord Comyn, this is Captain John
Paul."

The captain, who had been quite overwhelmed by this sudden arrival of a
real lord to our rescue at the very moment when we had sunk to despair,
and no less astonished by the intimacy that seemed to exist between the
newcomer and myself, had the presence of mind to bend his head, and tha