with your niece. Call some one to witness it."

Jaspar signed the certificate, without reading it. A witness was called,
and the paper in due form was deposited in De Guy's pocket.

"Now, sir, the lady is not altogether willing to consent to this
arrangement; but you must persuade her, and, if need be, compel her, to
consent. She will be here in a few days. After the marriage, it will
only remain for me to make over to you one-third of the property, which,
as her husband, I can then legally do. Be firm, and behave like a man,
and your troubles are ended. Everything will be hushed up, and you can
spend the evening of your days in peace and quiet. I bid you good-day."

The attorney formally and politely ushered himself out of the library,
and took his departure for New Orleans.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"Jaffier, you're free; but these must wait for judgment."

OTWAY.

We left Dalhousie engaged in the seemingly hopeless task of undermining
the wall of the slave jail, at which he labored for several hours,
resting at intervals, as his exhausted frame demanded. The prospect of
realizing his hope encouraged him, and lent an artificial strength to
his arm. He had already excavated a pit several feet in depth, but had
not reached the bottom of the foundation wall. The quantity of earth
piled upon the brink of the pit required extra exertion to remove it,
but he toiled on with the energy of despair.

After laboring several hours more, he discovered, to his great joy, the
bottom of the foundation. Again he plied the spade, and, by almost
superhuman exertions, he succeeded in excavating a hole under the
stones, which, below the surface of the ground, were not laid in mortar.
After loosening all the small stones around a larger one, he found that
he could pry it out, which, with much labor, he accomplished. The
removal of the other stones was comparatively an easy task, and a little
time sufficed to clear a space up to the solid masonry.

But here a new difficulty presented itself. The hole he had dug was
already half filled with the stones he had tumbled from their positions.
His strength was not sufficient to remove them, and he was compelled to
dig again, in order to prosecute his labors.

The wall removed, he commenced digging outside of the foundation wall.
Patiently he dug down to obtain sufficient room for the deposit of earth
from the outside. Slowly and laboriously he undermined the ground, till
the su