Next day the biscuit-dropping was repeated without the scene that had followed, and so wisely was this affair managed by all the parties concerned, that it was carried on for several weeks without a hitch. Under the influence of hope and improved fare, Hugh Sommers became so much brighter in spirits and better in health, and so much more tractable, that his guards at length removed his heavy fetters and allowed him to toil with free limbs, like the majority of the slaves. Hester also became almost cheerful under the wonderful influence of hope. But Hester and her father were each overwhelmed, more or less, by a wet blanket at that time, and, strange to say, their wet blankets happened to be their best friends. In the case of Hester, it was Sally. The more hopeful and cheery Hester became, the more did her black friend shake her woolly head and look dismal. "Why, Sally, dear, what's the matter with you?" asked the former one day, as they sat together in the bower on the roof, after returning from their visit to the slave-gang. A shake of the girl's head and an unutterable expression in her magnificent black eyes made Hester quite uneasy. "Do tell me, Sally. Is there anything the matter with you?" "De matter wid me? Oh no! Not'ing's neber de matter wid me--'cept when I eats too much--but it's you an' your fadder I's t'inkin' ob." "But we are both getting on very well, Sally, are we not? I am quite safe here, and darling father is growing stronger and fatter every day, thank God! and then our hope is very strong. Why should you be anxious?" Sally prefaced her reply with one of the professional gasps wherewith she was wont to bring down the iron pestle. "Well, now, you white folks am de greatest ijits eber was born. Do you t'ink you'll deliber your fadder from de Moors by feedin' him on biscuits an' _hope_? What's de end ob all dis to come to? das what I want to know. Ob course you can't go on for eber. You sure to be cotched at last, and de whole affair'll bust up. You'll be tooked away, an' your fadder'll be t'rowed on de hooks or whacked to deaf. Oh! I's most mis'rable!" The poor creature seemed inclined to howl at this point, but she constrained herself and didn't. In the gloom of the cheerless Bagnio, Hugh Sommers found his wet blanket in Edouard Laronde. "But it is unwise to look only at the bright side of things," said the Frenchman, after sympathising with his friend's joy in having discovered his daughter so unexpectedly and in such a curious manner. "No doubt, from her disguise, she must, as you say, be in hiding, and in comparative safety with friends, else she could not be moving so freely about this accursed city, but what is to be the end of it all?"