"There, at least," he murmured, "I shall be at peace. Camillia now believes me innocent, and she will weep for my memory. Were I to wait the issue of a trial, which must result in shame and condemnation, she might, indeed, as the Frenchwoman insinuated, learn to despise me." Heedless of all around him, absorbed in gloomy meditation, Paul Lisimon was some time unaware of the sound of a footfall close behind him; but as he drew nearer to the water side this footstep approached him still closer, and presently, in the faint gray light of that mysterious hour, betwixt night and morning, he beheld the long shadow of a man's figure upon the ground beside him. He started and turned round. As he did so, a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a deep bass voice exclaimed: "What do you want with yonder dark water, my lad, that you're in such a hurry to get to the river-side?" Paul shook the man's hand away from his shoulder with a gesture of anger. "By what right do you question me?" he said; "stand aside, and let me pass!" "Not till we've had a few words, my jail bird," answered the stranger. "Jail bird!" "Yes, mate, jail bird! you've no need to carry it off so fiercely with me. A file and a rope, eh? to blind the governor of the prison, and a good-natured turnkey to open the doors for you. That's about the sort of thing, isn't it?" Paul Lisimon turned round, and looked the stranger full in the face. He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow, upward of six feet high, dressed in a thick pilot coat, and immense leather boots, which came above his knees. The pilot coat was open at the waist, and in the uncertain glimmer of the morning light Paul Lisimon caught sight of the butt end of a pistol thrust into a leather belt. The stranger's face had once been a handsome one, but it bore upon it the traces of many a debauch, as well as the broad scar of a cutlass wound, which had left a deep welt from cheek to chin. "I know not who you are," said Paul, after looking long and earnestly at this man, "nor by what right you have interested yourself in my fate; but it is evident to me that you have had some hand in my miraculous escape of to-night." "Never mind that, comrade," answered the stranger, linking his arm in that of Paul Lisimon, and walking slowly toward the quay. "You're free and welcome, as far as that goes; but I don't think, after an old friend had taken a good bit of trouble to get you out of that thundering jail yonder--I don't think it was quite fair to go and try to chuck yourself into the water." "You, then, were my deliverer?" "Never you mind whether I was or whether I wasn't. Do you know what it cost to get you out of prison?" "No." "Well, near upon a thousand dollars, my lad." "And you paid this money! You, an utter stranger to me, bribed my jailers!" "Never you mind about that, I say again; those that paid the money for you didn't grudge a farthing of it. As to being a stranger, perhaps I'm not quite that."