While one might have counted ten I entirely forgot what had been agreed upon between Hiram Griffin and me, and my feet were already upon the rungs of the ladder to descend, when the cob-webs seemed suddenly to have been blown from my brain, allowing me to realize that despite all the dangers Hiram had succeeded in gratifying his whim without loss of liberty. You may well fancy that I opened the door in a twinkling, for it was dangerous to have him standing there in the broad light of day, and when he was come into the room, having closed and barred the door behind him, I flung my arms around his neck, clinging to him as if he was one lately returned from the very verge of the grave, as indeed I believe to this day was the case. "Why, lad, what has come over you?" he asked in astonishment. "You are shaking like an old woman with the palsy, and your face is as white as I have heard it said ghosts' faces are." "I had brought myself to believe you were taken into custody, Hiram! Job Lord was so certain the pass would not avail you, that it was almost the same as if I had seen you in the clutches of the lobster backs. You were cruel to leave us at such a time, simply to show that you could roam about the city at will, when the slightest mistake would have caused our chances for escaping with Silas to fall to the ground." "Is it in your mind, lad, that I went out simply on a whim? That I am so light-headed as to take chances in this Tory town for the purpose of showing that it could be done?" he asked in a tone that was really one of reproof. "Why else then did you go?" I cried, now grown angry, having recovered from my timorousness. "There came into my mind the idea that it would be a brave act to carry Job Lord and Seth Jepson back to Cambridge, and so I said to you lads; but no one believed it might be done. Then I had what has turned out to be a lucky thought, and said to myself if perchance it would be possible to get possession of a skiff we could, without much trouble or danger, take those two curs with us as proof that, aside from releasing Silas, our coming here had not been without good results." "But even though you found a boat, Hiram, how might we take passage in her, hampered by Job Lord and Seth Jepson?" I cried petulantly, for it excited my anger yet more to have him thus speak of what seemed an impossibility, from whatever point you viewed it. "That was the question in my own mind, lad, when the matter first came to me; but before coming back I settled it." "Settled it?" I repeated dumbly. "Aye, and what's more, every arrangement is made. Who, think you, I have been hob-nobbing with this last half hour?" "It would be of much the same piece with what you've already done, had you been so venturesome as to go even to the guard-house near Hill's wharf," I said angrily, and his laugh was as hearty and full of joy as if we were already come among our friends, having accomplished all that had been in our minds.