This part of his story he had, indeed, told my father and Gregory on the journey back from Norfolk where he was bought, and they had already repeated it to us, as you have heard. "But," he continued, "'tis capable enough of proof, if you will prove it. Write to Dublin, write to the Viscount St. Amande, my father, or to the King-at-Arms, who hath enrolled him successor to my uncle, Gerald, the late Lord, or, if you will, write to the Marquis of Amesbury, whose kinsman and successor, after my father, I am." "Humph!" said my father, "the name of the Marquis is known to me. 'Twas once thought he should have been sent Governor of Maryland, only he would not. He thought himself too great a man." "Young man," said Mary Mills, "since you say you are heir to the Marquis of Amesbury, doubtless you can tell us his lordship's country seat?" "Young lady," he replied, looking at her in so strange a way that, as she said later that night, she should dread him ever after, "'twere best to say his 'seats.' One he has near Richmond, in Surrey, a pretty place; another is in Essex, but the greatest of all is Amesbury Court, near Bristol--" Mary started at this, for she knew it to be true--"though in his town house, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, he has some choice curiosities, to say nothing of some most excellent wine. I would I had a draught of it now--your infernal American sun burns me to pieces, and the cruel voyage has nigh killed me." "Young man," said Gregory, "remember that, whomsoever you be, you are here a slave, and not free to express your thoughts either on our climate or aught else." "May be," replied the youth, "but it cannot be for long, if this--this--per--gentleman will but make enquiries. A letter may go from here to Ireland, if the vessel has not such cursed winds as the slave-ship had that brought me, and a reply come back, within three months. And if you neither beat nor kill me, but treat me fair, you shall be well rewarded----" "Stay," said my father, "on this, my estate, it is best for you not to speak of reward to me. Where rewards are given in Virginia they are given by the masters, not by the slaves. But, since you keep to your story and do challenge me to make enquiries as to its veracity, I have determined to act as a Christian to you. You shall neither be beaten nor hurt on my plantations--none are who behave well--and, pending the time that an answer may come as to the letter I shall write, you shall be fairly treated. If your narrative is true, you shall be free to go by the next ship that sails for England. If it is false, or it appeareth that you have used your knowledge of the noble families you have mentioned to impose on us, you shall be whipped and kept to the hardest work on the plantations till your time is served." "I am obliged to you," the other answered. "And you may be assured that you will receive confirmation of the truth of all I have told you. Meanwhile, what is to be my lot until that confirmation comes?"