"`Anything to serve ye, Tim,' says I. "`I've been an outrageous wicked fellow all my life, and have done all sorts of bad things,' says Tim. `I've consorted with pirates, and have seen many a robbery and cruel murther committed--but I won't talk of that now. I can't do much good, I'm afraid, but what I can I wish to do, what I'd made up my mind some time ago, when I was well-nigh dying and should have slipped my cable if it hadn't been for the care I received from a countryman, who took pity on me and nursed me as if I'd been his brother. As I got better he told me to cheer up, as he felt sure I should live. "Now, Tim," says he, "if you ever get to Old Ireland, I want you to find out Captain Tracy, who lives near to Waterford, and tell him that I am alive, and, please Heaven, will one day get back to see him and his daughter. I can't tell him whereabouts to look for me, for the best of reasons, that I don't know where I am-- nor have I any chance of making my escape; but you, Tim, may some day get free, and promise me, if you do, that you will take this message to Captain Tracy, and say that hope keeps me alive."' "`But maybe Captain Tracy won't believe me?' says I. `If he doesn't, his daughter will; and to make sure, take this bit of paper and show it them,' he replied. He wrote two letters on it; it was but a scrap, but it was the only piece he had. I put it in my 'baccy-box to keep it safe. Not two days after that I managed to make my escape, and, getting back to Jamaica, looked out for a homeward-bound vessel. As luck would have it, I shipped aboard the _Fair Rosamond_; and now, as death is hauling away at the tow-line, and I have no chance of fulfilling my promise, if you wish to do me a service and keep my soul quiet, you'll promise to take the message to Captain Tracy and the bit of paper in my 'baccy-box; I'll leave that to you, and everything else I've got on board. "I promised Tim that I'd do as he wished, and that if I failed he might haunt me, if he'd a mind to do so, till my dying day. Tim has come more than once in my dhrames to remind me, and I've been aiger ever since to do his bidding." "And where's the bit of paper?" asked Captain Tracy eagerly. "Here it is, yer honour," answered the seaman, pulling a battered old tobacco-box out of his pocket, from which he produced a yellow scrap of paper, on which was written, apparently with the end of a burnt stick, the letters O.M. Norah had been too much excited even to speak. She gazed at the paper. "Yes--these letters were, I am sure, written by Owen. I knew that he was alive; I was certain of it!" she exclaimed, her bosom palpitating as she spoke with the varied emotions which agitated her. "Oh, father, look at them! They must have been written by Owen; he had no time or means for writing more, and he was sure we should recognise them if they were ever brought to us."