As the convict advanced to meet us, Smith rose from his seat with an expression of gratitude at the prospect of soon being enabled to move.

“Well,” said Smith, speaking first, “you see we are ready to start, yet we could not go without bidding you good-by.”

“I have much to thank you for,” he said, his eyes cast to the ground as though fearful of looking up and exposing the weakness which oozed from them, and wet his long gray beard.  “My child thanks you all for the promptness with which you have revenged her wrongs; and to these two Americans she says, that her prayers shall ever ascend for your safe return to your country, and that happiness may await you when you have rejoined the friends of your childhood.”

“Can we bid her farewell, at parting?” asked Fred.

“If you wish it, yes,” answered the convict:  “but I have prayed with her all night, and have besought the Lord to strengthen her heart under this load of affliction.  She is calm now, and when you speak do not allude to her bereavement, or recall yesterday’s bloody tragedy.”

As he ceased speaking, he returned to the hut, and emerged leading the widow.  Her looks were much changed since we had seen her the day before.  Weeping and fasting, and sleepless nights, and above all, the thoughts of her husband’s sudden death, had so preyed upon her spirits that she seemed like another person.

“Here are the two Americans, child, who wish to bid you farewell,” her father said, when he saw that she was disposed to pay no attention to us.

Twice did he speak before she comprehended him; and after she had placed her hands to her head, as though to recall a recollection of our features, a faint look of recognition came over her face, and her leaden eyes were lighted up with some such expression as we had seen the day before, when she asked if Black Darnley was dead.

“You are sure that he is dead?” she asked in a low whisper, seizing Fred by the arm, and gazing into his blank-looking face.

“Whom do you mean?” Fred inquired, evading her question.

“You know; Black Darnley,—­the wretch who killed my husband, and injured me.  You look like him; but your face is not so black, and your hair is lighter.  But you may have changed it for the purpose of deceiving and wronging me again.  Ah, the more I look at you the firmer am I convinced that you are the wretch.”

She pushed his arm away, and turned with flashing eyes upon her parent, speaking vehemently,—­

“You told me that Darnley was dead, and that my injuries were avenged; and yet you see him standing before you alive, and insulting me with infamous propositions.  Have I no friend here to protect me?”

“We are all your friends,” I replied, in a soothing tone.

“It is false!  There is not a man here, or Black Darnley would not live to see another sun.  Men, indeed?  Ha, ha! my husband possesses more spirit than a dozen of you.”