however, maintained the utmost coolness and composure of demeanor.  Pointing his finger towards the intruder, he exclaimed:  “In Captain Obadiah Belford, ladies and gentlemen, you behold the most unmitigated villain that ever I met in all of my life.  With an incredible spite and vindictiveness he not only pursued my honored father-in-law, Colonel Belford, but has sought to wreak an unwarranted revenge upon the innocent and virtuous young lady whom I have now the honor to call my wife.  But how has he overreached himself in his machinations!  How has he entangled his feet in the net which he himself has spread!  I will tell you my history, as he bids me to do, and you may then judge for yourselves!”

At this unexpected address Captain Obadiah’s face fell from its expression of malicious triumph, growing longer and longer, until at last it was overclouded with so much doubt and anxiety that, had he been threatened by the loss of a thousand pounds, he could not have assumed a greater appearance of mortification and dejection.  Meantime, regarding him with a mischievous smile, our young gentleman began the history of all those adventures that had befallen him from the time he embarked upon the memorable expedition with his two companions in dissipation from York Stairs.  As his account proceeded Captain Obadiah’s face altered by degrees from its natural brown to a sickly yellow, and then to so leaden a hue that it could not have assumed a more ghastly appearance were he about to swoon dead away.  Great beads of sweat gathered upon his forehead and trickled down his cheeks.  At last he could endure no more, but with a great and strident voice, such as might burst forth from a devil 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.”