The nose of the gig grates on the river’s bank, and Captain Jack Paul leaps ashore. He is greeted by a tall, weather-beaten old man--grizzled and gray. The form of the latter is erect, with a kind of ramrod military stiffness. His dress is the rough garb of the Virginia overseer in all respects save headgear. Instead of the soft wool hat, common of his sort, the old man cocks over his watery left eye a Highland bonnet, and this, with its hawk’s feather, fastened by a silver clasp, gives to his costume a crag and heather aspect altogether Scotch. The gray old man, with a grinning background of negro slaves, waits for the landing of Captain Jack Paul. As the latter springs ashore, the old man throws up his hand in a military salute. “And how do we find Duncan Macbean!” cries Captain Jack Paul. “How also is my brother! I trust you have still a bale or two of winter-cured tobacco left that we may add to our cargo!” “As for the tobacco, Captain Paul,” returns old Duncan Macbean, “ye’re a day or so behind the fair, since the maist of it sailed Englandward a month hack, in the brig _Flora Belle_. As for your brother William of whom ye ask, now I s’uld say ye were in gude time just to hear his dying words.” “What’s that, Duncan Macbean!” exclaims Captain Jack Paul. “William dying!” “Ay, dying! He lies nearer death than he’s been any time since he and I marched with General Braddock and Colonel Washington, against the red salvages of the Ohio. But you s’uld come and see him at once, you his born brother, and no stand talking here.” “It’s lung fever, Jack,” whispers the sick man, as Captain Jack Paul draws a chair to the side of the bed. “It’s deadly, too; I can feel it. I’ll not get up again.” “Come, come, brother,” retorts Captain Jack Paul cheerfully, “you’re no old man to talk of death--you, with your fewer than fifty years. I’ll see you up and on your pins again before I leave.” [Illustration: 0071] “No, Jack, it’s death. And you’ve come in good time, too, since there’s much to talk between us. You know how our cousin left me his heir, if I would take his name of Jones?” “Assuredly I know.” “And so,” continues the dying man, “my name since his passing away has been William Paul Jones. Now when it is my turn to go, I must tell you that, by a clause of the old man’s will, he writes you in after me as legatee. I’m to die, Jack; and you’re to have the plantation. Only you must clap ‘Jones’ to your name, and be not John Paul, but John Paul Jones, as you take over the estate.” “What’s this? I’m to heir the plantation after you?” “So declares the will. On condition, however, that you also take the name of Jones. That should not be hard; ‘Jones’ is one of our family names, and he that leaves you the land was our kinsman.” “Why, then,” cries Captain Jack Paul, “I wasn’t hesitating for that. Paul is a good name, but so also is Jones. Only, I tell you, brother, I hate to make my fortune by your death.”