"You mean you feel personally bound?" "Yes; not quite so much to
your uncle, perhaps, as to yourself. But between us this has become a
debt of honor."

"But wait," she said earnestly "for I had even thought of that. I was
sure you would feel that way--any gentleman would. Still there is a
way out. You were sentenced as an indentured servant."

"I suppose so."

"It is true; you were so entered on the books of this ship. Uncle
Roger had to be sure of all this before he paid his money, and I saw
the entry myself. It read: 'Geoffry Carlyle, Master Mariner,
indentured to the Colonies for the term of twenty years, unless sooner
released; crime high treason.' Surely you must know the meaning of
those words?"

"Servitude for twenty years."

"'Unless sooner released.'"

"That means pardoned; there is no hope of that."

"Perhaps not, but that is not all it means. Any indentured man, under
our Maryland laws, can buy his freedom, after serving a certain
proportion of his sentence. I think it is true in any of the Colonies.
Did you not know that?"

I did know it, yet somehow had never connected the fact before