“Your uncle denies all knowledge of.  He was taken to be the tool of the captain of the slaver, and he disappeared so completely that it was supposed he had escaped to the ship.  The story goes that you were seized for a ransom, and killed in the struggle.  Your black ran all the way to town, crying the news to those he met on the Circle and in West Street, but by the mercy of God he was stopped by Mr. Swain and some others before he had reached your grandfather.  In ten minutes a score of men were galloping out of the Town Gate, Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Singleton ahead.  They found your horse dead, and the road through the woods all trampled down, and they spurred after the tracks down to the water’s edge.  Singleton recalled a slaver, the crew of which had been brawling at the Ship tavern a few nights before.  But the storm was so thick they could not see the ship’s length out into the river.  They started two fast sloops from the town wharves in chase, and your uncle has been moving heaven and earth to obtain some clew of you.  He has put notices in the newspapers of Charlestown, Philadelphia, New York, and even Boston, and offered a thousand pounds reward.”

CHAPTER XXIX

I MEET A VERY GREAT YOUNG MAN

The French clock had struck four, and I was beginning to fear that, despite my note, the captain’s pride forbade his coming to Mr. Manners’s house, when in he walked, as tho’ ’twere no novelty to have his name announced.  And so straight and handsome was he, his dark eye flashing with the self-confidence born in the man, that the look of uneasiness I had detected upon Mrs. Manners’s face quickly changed to one of surprise and pleasure.  Of course the good lady had anticipated a sea-captain of a far different mould.  He kissed her hand with a respectful grace, and then her daughter’s, for Dorothy had come back to us, calmer.  And I was filled with joy over his fine appearance.  Even Dorothy was struck by the change the clothes had made in him.  Mrs. Manners thanked him very tactfully for restoring me to them, as she was pleased to put it, to which John Paul modestly replied that he had done no more than another would under the same circumstances.  And he soon had them both charmed by his address.

“Why, Richard,” said Dorothy’s mother aside to me, “surely this cannot be your sea-captain!”

I nodded merrily.  But John Paul’s greatest triumph was yet to come.  For presently Mr. Marmaduke arrived from White’s, and when he had greeted me with effusion he levelled his glass at the corner of the room.

“Ahem!” he exclaimed.  “Pray, my dear, whom have you invited to-day?” And without awaiting her reply, as was frequently his habit, he turned to me and said:  “I had hoped we were to have the pleasure of Captain Paul’s company, Richard.  For I must have the chance before you go of clasping the hand of your benefactor.”

“You shall have the chance, at least, sir,” I replied, a fiery exultation in my breast.  “Mr. Manners, this is my friend, Captain Paul.”