ered, on
the pavement of the hall.

Arrived in the room, he sat down on the edge of his bed to recover from
the agony that he had just endured; but he had hardly taken his position
when he was recalled to a sense of his peril by the action of the boots,
who had knelt beside the trunk, and was proceeding officiously to undo
its elaborate fastenings.

"Let it be!" cried Silas. "I shall want nothing from it while I stay
here."

"You might have let it lie in the hall, then," growled the man; "a thing
as big and heavy as a church. What you have inside I cannot fancy. If it
is all money, you are a richer man than we."

"Money?" repeated Silas, in a sudden perturbation. "What do you mean by
money? I have no money, and you are speaking like a fool."

"All right, captain," retorted the boots with a wink. "There's nobody
will touch your lordship's money. I'm as safe as the bank," he added;
"but as the box is heavy, I shouldn't mind drinking something to your
lordship's health."

Silas pressed two Napoleons upon his acceptance, apologising, at the
same time, for being obliged to trouble him with foreign money, and
pleading his recent arrival for excuse. And the man, grumbling with even
greater fervour, and looking contemptuously from the money in his hand
to the Saratoga trunk, and back again from the one to the other, at last
consented to withdraw.

For nearly two days the dead body had been packed into Silas's box; and
as soon as he was alone the unfortunate New Englander nosed all the
cracks and openings with the most passionate attention. But the weather
was cool, and the trunk still managed to contain his shocking secret.

He took a chair beside it, and buried his face in his hands, and his
mind in the most profound reflection. If he were not speedily relieved,
no question but he must be speedily discovered. Alone in a strange city,
without friends or accomplices, if the Doctor's introduction failed him,
he was indubitably a lost New Englander. He reflected pathetically over
his ambitious designs for the future; he should not now become the hero
and spokesman of his native place of Bangor, Maine; he should not, as he
had fondly anticipated, move on from office to office, from honour to
honour; he might as well divest himself at once of all hope of being
acclaimed President of the United States, and leaving behind him a
statue, in the worst possible style of art, to adorn the Capitol at
Washington. Here he was, chain