They presently reached the spot where Cassius was seemingly at work with others who were repairing the devastation caused by the hurricane. Alfred asked Cassius whether he still had money to buy his ransom as at first fixed. He had. How soon could he bring it in his hand and buy his freedom? “Presently; in an hour; in five minutes,” the slave said, as he saw the benevolent smile broadening on Alfred’s face. “Fetch it then, and you and I will not part till you sail away over the blue sea yonder. Mr. Mitchelson, we will join you again presently, and conclude the business.” “You are not going with him, Alfred? He will return sooner without you.” But Alfred determined to lose sight of his charge no more till they should have quitted Paradise. Cassius walked so rapidly that Alfred could scarcely keep up with him. On reaching his hut, a part of which had fallen in during the hurricane, he put his spade into Alfred’s hands, pointing to a place where a heap of rubbish lay. He fetched another spade for himself from a neighbour’s hut, and began to dig among the rubbish with might and main. Alfred worked as hard as he, and neither had yet spoken a word. They first uncovered the bed of planks and mat on which the slave had spent so many nights of desolate grief, and which had been so often watered with his tears. Cassius, by a sudden impulse, kicked these to as great a distance as he could, snatched up a burning stick from his fire, and kindled them. As the flame shot up, he danced and sang till the last chip and shred were burned. He then spat upon the ashes and returned to his work. A little way under ground, beneath where the bed had stood, a leathern pouch appeared. Cassius seized it, showed Alfred with a rapid and significant gesture that it was full of coin, and marched straight towards the entrance of his garden. “Stay a moment,” said Alfred, laying his hand on his shoulder; “you are not aware that you will never come back to this place again. Is there nothing here, nothing of your own, that you wish to take with you? No clothes, no tools, or utensils?” Cassius looked about him with an expression of intense disgust. “Be prudent, Cassius. Your clothes and your tools will not be the less useful to you in Liberia because they belonged to you as a slave.” Cassius slowly returned and took up a few articles, but presently seemed much disposed to throw them into the fire. “Well, well,” said Alfred, “leave them where they are, and if your master does not allow you the value of them, I will. Now take one more look at the dwelling where you have lived so long, and then let us be gone.” Cassius had, however, no sentimental regrets to bestow on the abode of his captivity. He refused the last look, and strode away as an escaped malefactor from the gibbet, without any wish to look back. The first words he spoke were uttered as he passed old Robert’s hut.