His dark hair became gray.

He still dreamed of his old home on the Merrimac, and of his good Anna and the boys.

He wondered whether they yet lived, what they thought of him, and what they were doing.

The hope of ever seeing them again grew fainter and fainter, and at last nearly died out; and he resigned himself to his fate as a slave for life.
But one day a handsome middle-aged gentleman, in the dress of one of his own countrymen, attended by a great officer of the Dey, entered the ship-yard, and called up before him the American captives.

The stranger was none other than Joel Barlow, Commissioner of the United States to procure the liberation of slaves belonging to that government.