English or in Ojibway, as he was addressed.  At other times, if he began to speak at all, it was in French, the most familiar language of his boyhood, and sometimes scraps of the old priestly Latin would come to his lips as he lay half dozing, and dreaming perhaps of his life in the mission-school, and the time when he was to have been a teacher of his own people.  Chiefly, however, he lay quite silent, and seemed neither to see nor to hear what took place around him.  His face, where the hand of death was already visible, had more of its original beauty than Mr. Strafford had ever seen on it before; and as he came near to the bedside, he for the first time began to comprehend, what had always till now been an enigma to him, why Mary Wynter had loved and married her husband.

Christian roused himself little when he perceived his visitor, and Mr. Strafford seized the opportunity of speaking to him on the subject of his imprisonment, as a step towards the great news he had to tell.

“You will be glad,” he said, “when you can go away from here.  It will be very soon now, perhaps.”

“No,” was the answer.  “I do not want to go now.  If they could take away a large piece of that wall,” he went on dreamily, “so that I could breathe and see the sky, that is all I care for now.”

“You would like, however, to know that you can go away when you please?”

Christian looked at him earnestly.

“But it is a prison,” he said.  “How do you mean, that I can go away?”

“Do you recollect why you were brought here?”

“Yes.  They thought I had killed somebody.  It was all a mistake.  I knew nothing about it; but everybody thought I did.”

“They know now that it was a mistake.  The man who really did it, has told all.”

“And now?”

“Now you are proved to be innocent.  In a very short time you will be free.”

“Free?  I shall be free?”

For a moment the dying man raised himself upright.  His eyes flashed and his face glowed as if that thought of freedom had yet power to bring him back to life.  Then he fell back again, and clasped his thin hands over his eyes.

“Too late,” he muttered, “too late!”

Then he began to talk about things that belonged to that former life which seemed constantly present to his mind.  He talked to himself at first in a half whisper; then, noticing Mr. Strafford, who still sat by his bedside, he took him for one of his former masters, and spoke to him in French.

“Mon pere,” he said, “pray do not be angry with us.  We lost our way, and that is why we have been so long.  The woods are green still, but the ground is soaked with rain, and it is hard to get through the bushes, and we are very tired.”

A long sigh of weariness followed the words; and the prisoner fell into one of his frequent dozes.

So the great news had been told, and this was all its effect.  Yes, Christian was right; it was too late.  Clarkson’s work had been well done; and his second victim was past all human aid.