‘Look ye, my good fellow--I’m about to join that craft as her second mate. I’m bound for Cuba, so is that brig. She’s going on her own business, I’m going on mine, which is to aid your old comrades to escape from prison. So far as she goes my way I go hers, and between ourselves, no further. Now if you will trust to me I think we can manage to accomplish this object. How do you like the plan?’ ‘I don’t mind shipping in her for such a purpose,’ said Jack Herbert, ‘only she’s got such a cursed bad captain. King George never had a more faithful representative of his own black character than the English captain of that brig yonder. ‘I know it,’ said Jack confidently; why, do ye see they’ve been trying to get me on board there these ten days.’ ‘But, my good fellow, I shall be one of your officers, and shall look after your comfort--come, think better of this, you’ll ship, eh?’ After some considerable hesitation, Jack replied: ‘In this case I must, for damme, if I can bear to think of what those honest fellows are suffering off there in Cuba.’ ‘There’s my hand, my honest fellow,’ said the stranger. ‘I will go and enter your name on the shipping list, and meet you again to-night, when I will have a more explicit conversation with you and tell you more of my proposed course of conduct for the coming voyage.’ The stranger, whoever he was, had Fanny’s interest near at heart, and had evidently made himself master of the relation of each to the other, as well as the whole matter of young Lovell’s confinement in prison. Soon after the stranger left Jack Herbert, on his way to the shore, he was passing along one of the narrow and crooked lanes of the North End, as that part of the town was then called, and as it is known to this day, when he heard the groans of some one in distress. He sought the door of a low and poorly built house, from whence the sounds issued, and entering, he found a poor woman suffering from severe sickness, lying there upon a bed of straw. By her side sat a man of about twenty-five years of age, offering her such little comforts and attentions as were in his power. The room was desolate, and the stranger could see that want and poverty dwelt there. He asked the man what he could do to serve them, and whether he could not procure something for the sufferer, who was moaning most piteously. ‘Arrah, she’s past the nade of it now,’ said the man. ‘Go and get a physician,’ said the gentleman. ‘Get a Doctor is it? And who’ll pay.’ ‘I’ll see to that, go quick.’ ‘You’ll pay, will ye?’ ‘Certainly, be quick I say.’ The physician came at once, but informed them that the woman could not live but a few hours at most, and after prescribing a gentle anodyne he retired. The stranger paid the Doctor his fee, and after giving some money to the man and bidding him procure whatever should be necessary for his mother, he was just about to leave the miserable apartment when the man said: