some reparation. Haste, haste, get witnesses and
hear my dying declaration. There's no time to lose, for I feel I am fast
going!"

Without a moment's delay--- for I felt the importance of obtaining the
declaration, which I had no doubt would establish my innocence--I ran
for my father and Sergeant Lindsay, and, to make assurance doubly sure,
brought two of the privates also along with me. It was a striking scene
of retributive justice,

On our entering the apartment where Digby lay, the wretched man raised
himself upon his elbow. I ran and placed two pillows beneath him to
support him. He thanked me. Then raising his hand impressively, and
directing it towards me--

"That young man there," he said, "David Lorimer, is, as I declare on
the word of a dying man, innocent of the crime for which he was banished
to this country. I, and no other, am the guilty person. It was I who
robbed my master, Mr. Wallscourt, of the silver plate for which this
young man was blamed; and it was I who put the silver spoon in his
pocket, in order to substantiate the charge I subsequently brought
against him, and in which I was but too successful."

He then added, that in case his declaration should not be deemed
sufficient to clear me of the guilt imputed to me, we should endeavour
to find out a person of the name of Nareby--Thomas Nareby--who, he said,
was in the colony under sentence of transportation for life for
housebreaking; and that this person, who had been, at the time of the
robbery for which I suffered, a receiver of stolen goods, and with whom
he, Digby, had deposited Mr. Wallscourt's plate, would acknowledge--at
least he hoped so--this transaction, and thus add to the weight of his
dying testimony to my innocence.

Digby having concluded, I immediately committed what he had just said to
writing, and having read it over to him, obtained his approval of it. He
then, of his own accord, offered to subscribe the declaration, and with
some difficulty accomplished the task. The signature was hardly legible,
but it was quite sufficient when attested, as it was, by the signatures
of all present excepting myself. Exhausted with the effort he had made,
Digby now sank back on his pillow, and in less than three minutes after
expired.

We now learned from the unhappy man's two wounded companions, who, the
reader will recollect, were our prisoners, that, soon after my trial and
condemnation, he, Digby, had left Mr. Wallscourt's service, n