On the following day John Joseph took his son to the barrack, but what was the astonishment of both when the commandant told Gaspar that he was free and that he might return home.
"Free!" cried Gaspar in amazement. "And why?"
"Because you have a substitute," answered the officer.
"'I!" said Gaspar, with ever-increasing astonishment; "why, that can't be so!"
"Why do you say it can't be so? If the substitute is already accepted and enrolled it is so."
"But who is he?" asked Gaspar, amazed.
"That young man, there," answered the officer, pointing to the man whom his parents, in their beneficence, had brought up as a son.
"Michael, what have you done?" exclaimed Gaspar, strongly moved.
"What my mother charged me on her death-bed to do," answered Michael; "I have paid a debt.'
"You owed me nothing," answered Gaspar; "but I now owe you a debt; and God grant me the opportunity to pay it, brother; if the occasion presents itself, you may be sure I will not let it pass; that I will not."