sick, or had heard some bad news."

I saw the poor fellow's face flush at my apparently unkind speech, and I
saw an expression of surprise in his blue eyes which cut me to the
heart. I sprang from the table, and taking from my coat pocket the two
pardons, laid them before him without a word of remark.

His eyes were, the instant he read his name, blinded with tears. He laid
his head upon the table, and wept long and bitterly without speaking,
and his stout frame shook with the violence of his emotion. We suffered
him to continue without interruption; but when he did look up, he
grasped our hands, and pressed them convulsively, muttering,--

"At length, O, at length, I'm a free man, and no longer subject to a
keeper's nod. I can call my soul and body my own property, and look a
policeman in the face without trembling. Ah, blessed liberty, how much I
have longed for thee!"

He kissed the pardon--he kissed his name, which was written in a bold
hand on the document--and then pressed to his lips the signature of the
governor.

"Do you now feel truly happy?" asked Fred.

"I feel so joyous that there is nothing on earth which I crave," replied
Smith.

"Then we may ask you to lend us your aid before many days, and I hope
that you will not refuse."

"Me refuse? Ask of me the most difficult task and I will do it; for to
you do I owe freedom," cried our friend, enthusiastically.

Fred was about to confide to him the secret of the buried treasure, and
solicit his aid, when we were interrupted by the entrance of a stranger,
dressed in the uniform of an English officer.

"I beg your pardon, sirs," he said, glancing around the hut with a
slightly supercilious air at the want of comfort which was plainly
manifest, "but I think I have entered the wrong house."

"We cannot tell whether you have or not, until we know what your
business is," replied Fred.

"My business has reference to two gentlemen who dined with the governor
yesterday, and were conspicuous at the fire night before last," replied
the officer, who was a young man, and of prepossessing appearance.

"Then it is very probable we are the parties," said Fred, carelessly.
"We dined with the governor yesterday, and we did something towards
extinguishing the fire on Collins Street night before last."

"One other question, gentlemen, and I shall be certain. Are you
Americans?" demanded the officer.

"We claim the United States as our home, and to the best of our