Down in a narrow, dark dungeon, where the damp and stench were intolerable, and nothing could be seen until a light was procured, they found something lying on filthy straw that had human shape.  The hair and beard were long and overgrown; the features, begrimed with filth, were such as the sharpest eye could not recognize; and the whole body was so worn and emaciated, so ragged and tattered in appearance, that it was evident at a glance that foul practices must have been resorted to in order to tamper with life.”

“Now, sir,” said the doctor, addressing the stranger, “I will leave you and your friends to examine the patient, as perhaps you might feel my presence a restraint upon you.”

The stranger, after a glance or two at Fenton, turned around, and said, sternly, “Peace-officer, arrest that man, and remove him to the parlor as your prisoner.  But hold,” he added, “let us first ascertain whether this is Mr. Fenton or not.”

“I will soon tell you, sir,” said Corbet, approaching the object before them, and feeling the left side of his neck.

“It is him, sir,” he said; “here he is, sure enough, at last.”

“Well, then,” repeated the stranger, “arrest that man, as I said, and let two of you accompany him to the parlor, and detain him there until we join you.”

On raising the wretched young man, they found that life was barely in him; he had been asleep, and being roused up, he screamed aloud.

“Oh,” said he, “I am not able to bear it—­don’t scourge me, I am dying; I am doing all I can to die.  Why did you disturb me?  I dreamt that I was on my mother’s knee, and that she was kissing me.  What is this?  What brings so many of you now?  I wish I had told the strange gentleman in the inn everything; but I feared he was my enemy, and perhaps he was.  I am very hungry.”

“Merciful God!” exclaimed the stranger; “are such things done in a free and Christian country?  Bring him up to the parlor,” he added, “and let him be shaved and cleansed; but be careful of him, for his lamp of life is nearly exhausted.  I thank you, Corbet, for the suggestion of the linen and clothes.  What could we have done without them?  It would have been impossible to fetch him in this trim.”

We must pass over these disagreeable details.  It is enough to say that poor Fenton was put into clean linen and decent clothes, and that in a couple of hours they were once more on their way with him, to the metropolis, the doctor accompanying them, as their prisoner.

The conduct of Corbet was on this occasion very singular.  He complained that the stench of the dungeon in which they found Fenton had sickened him; but, notwithstanding this, something like ease of mind might be read in his countenance whenever he looked upon Fenton; something that, to the stranger at least, who observed him closely, seemed to say, “I am at last satisfied:  the widow’s heart will be set at rest, and the plans of this black villain broken to pieces.”  His eye occasionally gleamed wildly, and again his countenance grew pale and haggard, and he complained of headache and pains about his loins, and in the small of his back.