"Verily, my good man, you speak truly. These are deliberations at which there must be no spy. Let no whispering tongue breathe aught of this meeting."
His words were so strange, that they stood amazed, gazing at him in wonder. Drummond at last gasped:
"'Fore God, who are you?"
"A man like you," was the answer; "a man no older, yet whom sorrow hath crushed and bowed with premature age; a man with a heart to feel and a brain to think; a man who would willingly exchange places with you, though you stand within the shadow of a scaffold; a man, whose heart--O God!--must speak, or it will break; a friend who loves you, who never wronged any one, but has been made the puppet of outrageous fortune; a man who has more wealth than all Virginia, and yet is poorer than the lowest beggar; a man born to misfortune; a child of sorrow and of tears; one who never loved, but to see the object of his affections blighted or stolen; a man to whom dungeons, chains, slavery, death, hell itself would be heaven compared to what he hath endured; such a poor wretch, my friends, is now before you."
He could say no more, but, sinking upon a chair, buried his face in his hands and burst into tears. The three friends gazed at him for several seconds in astonishment; then they looked at each other for some solution to this mystery.
"What meaneth this?" Drummond asked when he regained his voice. "Surely I have heard that voice before. It takes me back, back into the past, many years ago, when we were all young."
Before any one could say a word, Sir Albert started up, laid aside his cocked hat and, brushing back his long snow-white hair from his massive brow, said:
"Drummond, Lawrence, Cheeseman, friends of my youth, look on this face and, in God's name, tell me you recognize one familiar feature left by the hand of misfortune."
The three looked,--started to their feet, and Drummond cried:
"God in heaven! hath the sea given up its dead? It is John Stevens!"