The next morning a courier reached Abner, with an urgent message from a wounded man, who was dying and wished to see him.
"Who is he?" asked Abner.
"A steward of one of the sutlers, who came on this expedition as cook. He was a colored fellow," answered the messenger.
A look of intense interest came over Abner's face.
"Where is he?" he demanded.
"Follow me and I will show you," said the messenger.
Leaving the affairs, that were engaging his attention, to the management of Major Fleming, Colonel Tompkins hurried away. In one of the lowly huts of the village he found Yellow Steve, the strange negro, lying on a pallet. He had been wounded by a musket ball in the breast, and his life was fast ebbing away. He had but a few hours to live at most, for the wound was such the surgeon pronounced recovery impossible.
"I am dying, colonel," said the negro, "but I thank God that I have seen you at last to give you this." He put his hand in the breast-pocket of his blouse and drew forth a sealed package. "I could not have died without giving you this. I have hunted for you everywhere since you were captured. I have been in almost every camp in the South. I should have been satisfied to give it to your brother Oleah, had he not shown the same haughty spirit of one who has been the cause of his own ruin as well as mine."
Abner noticed that the packet had been much worn, as if it had been carried a long time in some one's pocket. It was addressed, in a very plain but evidently unknown hand, to himself.
"You will understand," said the negro, "the seal is not to be broken, nor the contents examined, until I am dead. I want no one, least of all you, to know my dark secret while there is yet life within this poor body. I have suffered enough during my miserable existence without having your curses heaped upon my dying head."