The intensifying grip might really have broken the old man’s bone. “Not for your life--never a whisper to any other living creature! Only you can do this. I--I--I should not be believed.” “Not believed! You!” cried Colonel Kenwynton in a tone of such indignant, vicarious, insulted pride, that what self-control the other man possessed broke down; he flung his arms about the old man’s quivering frame, bowed his head on the Colonel’s shoulder and sobbed aloud. “Not even you would believe me--if you knew--if you knew what I have been--what I am.” “Exactly what I do know,” said the Colonel, sturdily. “You are overcome by your emotions, dear old fellow. You are overwrought. We will put an end to this, sir. Come, halloo the boat. I can’t halloo, Cap--think of that for me!--damn this cough! Halloo the boat, and tell the mate to send us a roustabout to paddle. Or, hadn’t we better take the yawl? That dug-out looks tricky--and, by God, man, it’s leaky.” He had advanced to the brink where the craft lay. “No, no,” cried the other, “not a breath, not a whisper. It would frustrate all.” Then impressively, “Colonel Kenwynton, strange things have come about in this country because of the war. The rich are the poor; the right are the wrong; the incompetent sit bridling in the places that the capable have builded; an old paper, an old treasure, lost time out of mind, would reverse some lives, by God! And _I_ hold the secret, like an omnipotent fate. There must be no miscarriage of justice here, Colonel Kenwynton.” The old man’s eyes stared through the dusk like an owl’s. “You didn’t call me out here at this time of night to talk of titles to property and acts of justice, Hugh Treherne, in this marsh--why, there ain’t a bull-frog left here.” He lifted his head and gazed out from the flapping broad brim of his hat at the windy waste of waters, the indefinite lines of the shore, the distant summits of the forest trees tossing to and fro against the tumultuous unrest of the clouded horizon. Close at hand rose sheer precipitous elevations of the tow-head; seeming far away towered the great bulk of the grounded steamer, whitely glimmering through the night, her lamps a dim yellow focus here and there, her fires extinguished, her engines sleeping and supine. “I called you out here, Colonel, because you are the only man left in the world who respects his promise, who reverences his Maker, who trusts his friend and would go through fire and water on his summons.” “I’ll take an affidavit to the water, dammy,” said the Colonel, grimly, stamping about as the trickling icy streams ran sleekly down his garments, over his instep. “But come to the steamboat, Hugh. We’ll have a glass of hot brandy and water, and talk this thing over in comfort.” Captain Treherne seemed to struggle for a modicum of self-control. His voice had a remonstrant cadence such as one might use in addressing a fractious child. “Colonel, you knew once what a council of war might mean.”