“Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.”
HAMLET.
Appadocca was led to a narrow compartment in the gun-deck where he was
locked up, and a sentinel was placed at the door.
The unexpected turn that his affairs had taken, seemed to have but little
effect on his mind. The sad prospect of being tried like the meanest
criminal, and condemned, perhaps, to an ignominious death appeared not to
startle his settled cynicism.
When the door of the cabin was closed upon him, after having sat for a
time in a deep meditation, he knocked from within and asked the man who
kept guard without, for a piece of chalk, which, after some delay, was
given to him. With it he began to draw algebraical figures on the boards
that partitioned his cabin prison, and seemed engrossed in some deep
calculation. In this manner the afternoon passed. When the short tropical
twilight came and went, and he was no longer capable of seeing his
figures, he seated himself down again and remained so until late in the
night, when he stretched himself on the deck for the purpose of going to
sleep.
He had not lain down long before the door of the cabin was silently
opened, and an individual closely wrapped in a boat-cloak entered. The
cloak was immediately thrown off, and, by the light of a small lantern
which the stranger carried, Appadocca saw before him Charles Hamilton,
his friend.
“Welcome, Charles!” said Appadocca, affecting more than usual
lightsomeness, “welcome to my narrow quarters,” at the same time, casting
his eyes around the close cabin, which, for the time being, constituted
his prison.
“Hush! Emmanuel,” said the commander’s son, “and, for G—d’s sake, do
not speak in such a trivial manner, when you are in such a dangerous
position. Tell me,” he continued, while the most impatient anxiety could
be detected in his tone, “tell me how you could have brought yourself to
this melancholy pass.”
“’Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,” replied Appadocca, “as your
own most noble and illustrious countryman has it.... But you seem to
be entirely cast down with anxiety—bah! banish that, and if you can
accommodate yourself on this hard deck, sit down and we shall have a
little conversation on ‘the happy days gone by.’”
“Happy, indeed, they were, Emmanuel, and little did I dream when we
pursued our studies together, and when I, together with the others,
almost worshipped the intellect with which heaven has blessed you, that
I should ever have met you as a prisoner on board my father’s ship,
accused, too, of such a grave offence as piracy.” This was spoken with
such deep feeling, that Appadocca could scarcely continue his tone of
assumed gaiety.
“But what is this Emmanuel?” asked Charles, as his eyes met the figures
which Appadocca had traced. “Calculations? must I believe that your
cynicism can have made you think so lightly of the sad doom which hangs
over you as to permit you to work equations and solve problems at this
moment?”
“Now, since you are bent upon being very serious,” answered Appadocca,
“pray accommodate yourself and I shall speak to you, and as to those
calculations, they concern you more than you imagine. Let your ship be in
a safe harbour within these two weeks to come: a comet will be visible
in seven days’ time, near the constellation of the Southern Cross; the
hurricane that will follow at its tail, will be more than many ships will
be able to bear. Now sit down.”
The young officer sat down.
“You ask me,” began Appadocca, with his characteristic gravity, which had
now returned, “first, how it has happened that I originally found myself
a pirate, cruising in the Caribean sea; and, secondly, a prisoner on
board your father’s ship. I regret much that even friendship should have
interposed to elicit from me a narrative, which I have always desired to
carry with me to the—scaffold now, I suppose. Nevertheless, now that I
am on the brink of destruction, it may be well to let the world know the
cause of my conduct towards the individual whom an unhappy accident made
my father;—which conduct, I admit, may now look strange and criminal.
“You remember, when you left the university of Paris, that I was
then preparing to compete in the _concours_ for the professorship of
astronomy.”
“Which I always believed you would have, undoubtedly won,” interrupted
the officer.
“Do not interrupt me. Within a short time after your departure, I
received a letter from the faithful servant, who always attended her,
acquainting me with my mother’s death. You, who have known the more
than ordinary fondness that my mother and I so strongly entertained for
each other, can easily understand the overwhelming effect which such an
announcement had upon me.”
“I know, Emmanuel—pass over that quickly,” said the young officer.
“Even my philosophy was not strong enough to bear up against it, and
I fell into a fever, from the effects of which I did not rally for a
considerable period.
“Well, with my mother’s death, my means of support ceased; for she seems
to have carefully concealed the fact from me, that all her little fortune
had been devoted to my education, and had been expended for the purpose
of keeping me, as much as possible, on a level with the station which
her ancestors had occupied. I was, consequently rendered incapable of
continuing my preparations for the _concours_, and it became absolutely
necessary for me to endeavour to gain my livelihood by my own exertions.
“When the whole of my lifetime, up to that period, had been passed in
schools and colleges, you may easily imagine that I was not much adapted
to friction against the world, and to fight in the scrambling battle, for
bread.
“The only means I possessed was my pen,—precarious means! The only
method of procuring food was by writing on those subjects, with which
I had, more or less, filled my mind. Paris was over-crowded with
individuals placed in a similar position to mine, who, however, possessed
the superior advantage of being better able to thrust themselves forward;
a thing which I sympathized too little with the world to be able to do.
Besides, it was very problematical, whether success in Paris would bring
me remuneration that would be sufficient to maintain me in the manner
in which I had been brought up;—for you must know that literary men are
badly paid in France. I felt, also, a certain disgust in remaining among
those by whom I was known, when I fell into a condition which, at best,
would be but precarious. For these reasons, I resolved to visit the
British capital, where remuneration was reputed to be greater and more
secure.
“I left Paris, after taking leave of but few of my friends, and went
to London. When I arrived there, I found there were many subjects
on which but little had been written; for the genius of the English
people calls them a different way from the unprofitable consideration
of abstruse subjects. I wrote about these things. I took my papers to
the publications of the day. They did not refuse them:—‘They would
publish them,’ they said, ‘when there was room.’ That, I found out by
experience, was but an excuse. They were not inclined absolutely to
refuse the articles, so they had recourse to that shuffling subterfuge,
for they had their own friends to serve. I waited long—there still was no
room; sometimes, at great intervals, a paper was published, but so sadly
mutilated that it became almost absurd.
“In the mean time, the small amount of money which I possessed became
more and more diminished; still I hoped. Yes: I had that delusive,
cheating, empty solace of the afflicted—hope. Hope, which mankind has
complaisantly numbered among its cardinal virtues, because it holds out
to each the lighted wisp that leads and leads him on until he finally
stumbles into the grave that closes up his existence. All my valuables
were disposed of, one after another, and I was at last left without
a brass penny—without property, save my telescope. With that I would
not—I could not part. I should have more easily yielded up my heart than
dispossess myself of my old and only companion.
“Together with the letter which announced my mother’s death, I received a
casket which she requested, at her last moments, should be delivered into
my hands. I had always been led to believe, that my father had died when
I was a child; but in the casket I found a letter, informing me, that he
was not dead, and enjoining that I should ever to study to cherish and
respect him who was pointed out to me as my sire. My feelings told me at
once, that my good mother had been treated with injustice, and vengeance
was my first impulse.
“I had always entertained peculiar opinions about women: I had been
accustomed to consider her the superior of the two beings; nay, I had
gone further: I had considered her one of those benignant spirits
which the disciples of the theological system introduce in their
allegories,—the ultimate link between this condition and a higher and
more refined humanity. I had looked upon her as the embodiment of
goodness, that sweetened existence with its smiles, and made sorrow
shrink into insignificance by its sympathy; as a being in whom intellect
and propensities were happily not made to preponderate over the loftiest
attributes of human nature—the sentiments. Holding this belief, I
had worshipped her in whatever condition I found her;—in gorgeous
magnificence, or in sordid rags, as pure and spotless as the lily, or
polluted or stained with foulest crimes. To me she ever was woman, and
that was sufficient. On account of this peculiarity, I always looked
with horror upon any man that could be base enough to take any advantage
of her, or give her pain. Such an individual I considered unmanned and
dishonored, and would shrink from him with disgust. Judge, then, of my
state of mind, when I discovered that the crime which I abhorred so much
was brought so personally under my reprobation.
“In a calmer mood, however, I thought that sorrow and restitution
ought to suffice to obliterate crime; that, at least, I should give
the offending party an opportunity of remedying the wrong he had done.
Perhaps repentance might creep into his soul. I wrote, then, to the
person who had been indicated as my father. He was a wealthy planter in
Trinidad. I made it known to him that I was acquainted with the secret of
my parentage. I described to him the utter distress in which I, his son,
was then placed, and besought him to send me a pittance to sustain that
life of which he was the cause.
“Months passed, and I received no answer. Certain feelings began to
rankle in my bosom; I, however, took care not to be precipitate. Still
hope sustained me. I was obliged to pass days together without food. On
such occasion, I would stand by some thoroughfare and watch the over-fed
passers, and meditate on that strange destiny which gave to some too
much, and to others too little.
“One beautiful night, the stars were clearly visible, and I loitered
towards one of the bridges that span the Thames, to enjoy the happiness
of watching them. There, seating myself down on one of the stone benches,
I forgot for a moment my distress, and felt as I was wont to feel in
happier days. The night waned:—attracted by the lurid glimmer of Antares,
I fell into a reverie on the theory of the starry scintillation. It may
have been one o’clock in the morning,—like the labourer whose thews and
sinews were relaxed with the day’s unremitting toil; the great metropolis
was buried in that comparative repose which it enjoys only at that early
hour of the morning. The rattling of numberless vehicles, the shuffling
of thousands of bustling wayfarers had now ceased. Nothing was to be
heard but the soon-ceasing rattle of some hurrying conveyance, the
measured steps of the police officers, or, perhaps, the ringing laugh
of some nightly merry-maker. My eyes were fixed on the stars, and I was
dreaming on the orbs of space, when suddenly the low restrained sobs of
intense agony fell on my ear. I suddenly turned my head, when I beheld a
woman standing on the wall, apparently ready to throw herself headlong
into the river. She had a child in her arms, and she pressed it to her
bosom, while she loaded it with caresses, and bathed it with tears. Her
sobs were those of despair. In an instant I comprehended her intention,
and creeping silently along the parapet, I suddenly stood up and seized
her in my arms. She gave one convulsive shriek and swooned away.
“I had taught myself to look on misery as the actings of certain general
laws: I had accustomed myself to look upon the most appalling phenomena
of organic and inorganic life simply as the consummation to which they
must necessarily come. I had studied to bring down to nothing the
revolting aspect of misery, the bloody scenes of warriors weltering in
their blood, or the ghastly hue of emaciating disease; but never before
that night had there been presented to my eyes such a combination of
utter misery, of gentleness, of innocence, of suffering, of goodness, and
of despair, as I beheld blended in the woman whom I had thus rescued from
perdition.
“She was young, as yet scarcely of the age capable to bear even the
ordinary troubles of the world. Her auburn hair floated loose over
her shoulders and her pale emaciated face, while the whiteness of her
forehead was here and there to be seen between her dishevelled tresses.
Her lacklustre eyes were as sunken as if animation had already ceased; a
tattered dress hung about her skeleton frame, and her fingers were more
like those of a dead than of a living creature. The babe was as pale as
the moon that shone upon it. Its sweet little features were locked in a
calm lethargic sleep: its spirit seemed to sympathise with that of its
mother; whilst neither her alarm and swoon, nor the bleakness of the
night, could rouse it from its happy slumber, or draw a murmuring cry
from its lips.
“I stood for a long time, supporting the unhappy girl in my arms,
anxiously watching the return of animation. Her circulation was slow, for
want had fed upon her strength.
“‘Oh, oh!—where, where—am I?—no—no—I am not there’—she wanderingly
muttered, as she gradually recovered.
“Her head drooped in silence, as she became conscious of her position
and exposure. I questioned her delicately on the circumstances that
led to her taking so fatal a resolution as the one which I had, but
accidentally, prevented her from carrying into effect. After much
hesitation, she told me the story of her misfortune.
“She had been left fatherless and motherless. She had devoted herself to
the man whom she had been taught, by his ardent professions, to look upon
as her only stay, and whom she still loved; he had perjured himself, and
abandoned her.
“She had hid her head in shame and misery from her friends, and by
incessant toil had sometimes procured herself food: but she became a
mother, and could no longer work. She had pined away with her babe in a
hovel: at last to see her child daily droop under her eyes, maddened her;
she could bear it no longer. There might be a happier lot, she thought,
in another world, where at least there were no deceivers, and so resolved
to flee from this.
“‘And is the father of your child rich, and able to provide food for it?’
I inquired.
“‘He is,’ she replied.
“‘Recollect,’ I said, ‘that however desperate your condition may be,
still you have no right to take away the life of your child. The little
innocent has been brought into the world by you, it is, therefore, your
duty to devote your life to its care and preservation.’
“She wept.
“I had no money—my coat was scarcely good enough to protect me from the
cold—I still had two buckles on my shoes, with which I had not parted
because I knew their value would scarcely procure me a meal. I took them
off and laid them on the babe. ‘Those may serve to get your child some
milk,’ I said. She refused them. I pressed her to accept them for the
child, and after having obtained a promise that she would never again
attempt to destroy herself I conducted her off the bridge.
“The history of the poor girl had made a deep impression on me; I was
agitated, so I retraced my steps, and seated myself down again; but I
could no longer study the stars: the mother and child were ever present
to my mind. That girl was once happy, I thought. She may have shone in
virtue and accomplishments. Now she is loaded with misery. And what has
changed her condition thus? was it the visitation of Providence? was it
sudden illness? was it her own crime? She had fallen a victim to her own
virtues, her own confidence, her own fondness, her own gentleness. The
angelic nature of her sex, was worked upon for her destruction, and after
having been deceived, she was discarded,—she! nay,—not she alone—but the
innocent child—too young to offend, too helpless to be criminal—was also
thrown on the wide, unfeeling world. Has one human creature any right
thus to load another with misery, to drive another to desperation, to
convert the life of another—aye, and by a most villainous method—into a
period of enduring suffering and anguish? The man, too, who hast blasted
her happiness, is rich, and perhaps, at this moment, when his victim and
child are perishing of starvation, is surrounded by his merry minions
and lemans, and is squandering away that wealth, of which the thousandth
part would save his child from famine. I could no longer restrain myself.
‘Great Ruler of the Universe,’ I exclaimed, ‘canst Thou permit these
things? How is it, that thou, who hast filled the space, that confounds
human understanding, with such worlds of beautiful worlds; that hast so
wisely adjusted their incomprehensible systems, that all revolve and move
in perfect harmony, and submit implicitly to the great laws that Thou
hast imposed upon them:—how is it that Thou hast given such license to
one of thy humble creatures, that he, apparently uncontrolled, can stride
in wickedness over this fair world, and blast the life and happiness
which Thou, also bestowed?—This, at least, is not wisdom!...’
“Hush! blasphemer, hush,” a spirit seemed to whisper to me.
“Chide not Heaven foolishly! Thou sayest that He has ordained laws to
which worlds that thou but faintly seest above, are subject:—that’s true:
carry thy reflections still farther. Thou beholdest above thee, with
the naked eye, orbs, in regard to which thy powers of calculation are
scarcely comprehensive enough to keep pace with thy vision. To thy sight,
when assisted, these already uncountable worlds multiply themselves
to numbers which thou canst attempt to speak of only in ratios; and,
probably, when thy ingenuity shall have contrived to invent some
instrument that will assist thy vision still more, thou shalt behold,
open before thee, an immensity of orb-filled space, at the sight of which
despair will well-nigh seize thee. Consider all these,—even the few that
thou seest without unusual exertion,—they all exist, move, and revolve
by the force of laws which are impressed upon them. Contemplate their
mechanism and order. Take this one—it is the centre of a system, and
stands the governor, amidst millions of other orbs that are subject and
obedient to its guidance. It moves, and they move, too, with and around
it; and it is itself subject to some other, from which it receives its
motion and its law. Those others, too, that so humbly seem to follow
it, are, each of them in its place, the rulers of others again, that
are less powerful than themselves, and give their law to them. Each
of these, apparently, disjointed parts, and these numerous groups of
world-contained worlds, are united and cemented, under the all-powerful
force of law, and form a whole that is more incomprehensible at the ratio
of the unit of each, than its component parts. Still, notwithstanding
this unrealizable immensity, behold the harmony and regularity with
which they perform their revolutions. In these gyrations, that are
as innumerable as themselves, not one clashes against the other; and
when they diverge the distance of even a cubic inch, such divergence
is ever exacted by the necessity of the self-same law, which so
marvellously controls them. In the movements of these vast bodies time
can be calculated to the utmost second; and in their inclination to a
given point, towards which they have been verging for millions of your
computed years, not a difference, except that which the known law seemed
to require, can be traced, either in ratio, or in, what appears to your
short-lived eyes, their remarkable slowness. Here mark law, and obedience
to that law.
“From the sublime regions come now to earth. Thou mayest behold design
and intelligence in the very inorganic matter that composes it, from
the consolidated and hardened granite that resists and beats back the
rushing ocean, to the minute particle that blinds thee by the roadside.
Law is stamped upon them, and adherence to that law, composes their very
existence. Again, the trees which shelter this beautiful globe tell, in
their germination, their bloom, their blossom, and decay, of law and
obedience.
“Proceed to organized things;—contemplate all living creatures, from the
low and torpid lizard that creeps upon the tombstone, and turns its
cold and clammy sides to the sunbeams, to the gigantic elephant—thou
wilt find that every animal carries in itself a law and undergoes the
pains of retribution whenever it violates that law. Thus the browsing
sheep that forgets its instinct, and feeds on poisonous herbs, dies. The
scorpion, that turns his sting upon itself, also dies. The antelope, if
it throws itself down a rock must necessarily be dashed to pieces. In
all these things you see law, and its safeguard—retribution. Man, as
well as all other beings, is subject to it, and the penalty which its
violation entails. If you establish false systems among yourselves, and
consent to postpone to an imaginary period, this penalty, which ought to
be made to follow closely upon every violation of the law, surely Heaven
is not to be blamed. Duty is poised between the reward of virtue and
retribution:—man has the license to choose, between either meriting the
former, or bringing down the latter, upon himself. The great error of
your social physics is, that you remit this penalty to a period of time,
which if it were even unimagined, would fail to afford the principal and
best effect of retribution,—the deterring from crimes.
“Like those who dwelt on the banks of the Nile of old, who built
cities for dead men, and gave them kings, and made laws for them, and
established vast prisons and instituted judges, and sketched out places
which the most fevered imagination cannot realize, and surrounded them
with pleasures, or filled them with horrors, either as happy regions
where virtues were to be rewarded, or frightful holes in which crimes
were to be punished, you permit the evil-doer to live his wicked years,
and sink amidst the weeping sorrow of friends or bribed strangers into
the quiet grave, then read the lesson to mystified listeners—that
evil deeds are punished. If the wretch, who poisoned the life of that
miserable creature whom thou but now didst rescue, were made to suffer
the one-hundredth part of that misery which he has caused; his mates in
vile wickedness, appalled by the example, would shrink in trembling fear
from the perpetration of like crimes. You forget, in your social system,
the wisdom of the race which you affect to despise, while you cherish the
theological philosophy which you were eager to borrow from them, and tie
the hand of the avenger, and blunt the double-edged sword of retribution.
You punish the man who takes away the life of another; who consigns
another to the oblivion on which neither misery nor pleasure intrudes,
and him who makes the life of the living worse than death, you permit
to roam, in his foulness, this beautiful earth, and only hope that the
retribution which you yourselves ought to bring about, will be wrought by
the very hand of the Being who operates here but by his created agents.
And then, thou short-sighted, impulse-ridden, and reason-limited mortal,
complainest in loud and senseless terms against Heaven, while at thy own
door lies the wrong. Know that man himself, by law, is the avenger, the
retributionist on himself or others.
“‘Ah! is it so?’ I said. I reflected, and found that it must be so.—The
scales fell from my eyes.—‘True, true,’ I cried.—Heaven forgive the
impulse of a short-sighted mortal.
“Then this man, who may now be rolling in profusion while his child is
dying of hunger, ought to be made to bear the stings of famine, too,
and suffer the same misery which he has inflicted on others.—And—oh! a
fearful light broke in upon me—and the man from whose hands I demanded
not existence, but who has given me life, and abandoned me in my misery,
ought likewise to feel some part of the sufferings which I undergo. Yes:
the only prevention of crime is to make its punishment follow immediately
in its course.
“‘Then, hear ye powers above,’ I exclaimed, ‘this miserable life I devote
to vindicate the law of nature which has been violated in me, and in your
child; and I swear, by the Great Being who gave me reason, that I shall
not rest until I have taught my father, that the creature to whom he has
given life possesses feelings and sensibility, and is capable of taking
vengeance.’
“I resolved, at once, to start for the West Indies, and to go to the
docks, as soon as it was light, to procure a ship. So, on the impulse
of the thought, I proceeded to the place where I had my lowly lodging
to fetch my telescope. But, although I knocked loud enough to awake the
soundest sleepers, the door was not opened; I, therefore, sat on the
steps until daylight came. When morning had dawned I again knocked,
but was refused admittance. ‘Then give me my telescope,’ I prayed. The
telescope had been sold the night before for my rent, I was told. I was
overwhelmed. It was natural enough the master of the house should require
his money, but I never could have contemplated that my telescope would
have been taken from me. Rallying from the shock that I had received, I
begged to see the master. After some time he came to the door. He was a
fat heavy little man, whose voice came whizzingly from his encumbered
chest. I implored him to restore me my telescope, telling him that it was
my only companion and solace in life, and I offered to work for him in
whatever capacity, how mean soever it might be, for the few shillings
that were due to him, provided he would give me back my telescope. ‘Go
along with you,’ he answered, ‘do you take me for a fool?’ and shut the
door violently in my face. I turned away, and was so dejected in mind
and wasted in body, that I could not walk. The morning advanced, and
the street began to present the busy scene by which it was every day
animated. My musings imperceptibly turned on the motly crowd before me. I
contemplated the scene in which there might be observed the shrewd cabman
driving to death his jaded horse, the affluent man of business, hurrying
with inclining head to the pursuit of greater wealth, the afflicted
widow, moving along in modest grief; the age-stricken and poor cripple
crawling in his sordid rags, and the man of fortune with his air of
self-satisfaction, his dangling jewels and his gaudy equipage. I remarked
that these different persons passed each other as if no kindly word or
salutation had ever rested on their heavy tongues—like gruff animals
that hurry in silence to their separate lairs. Each seemed intent on his
own pursuit. The driver did not withdraw his attention from his horse’s
head, nor did the lordling stop to succour the decaying wretch; the man
of business did not raise his eyes from the ground, on which he seemed to
count his gains, to notice the sorrowful widow: yet these men possess
wealth enough to render thousands happy without injuring themselves.
“They have wealth enough to have my telescope restored to me, and cause
my happiness; still, yon wretched being may—nay, will probably sink into
his grave for the want of a brass penny from any of these, and I—I should
probably be handed over to the police officer, were I to make one more
effort for my telescope. ‘Mankind, farewell!’ I exclaimed, from the force
of my disgust, ‘I may pity you, but never can love you.’
“I then walked down to the London Docks where, after some inquiry, I
found a ship prepared for a voyage to Jamaica. I offered myself to the
commander as a seaman. He began to depreciate my capabilities, and said
that I should, probably, encumber others rather than be of any service.
“I told him that I could steer a ship, and take observations; I did not
mention my competency to do the other parts of navigation, for I was
afraid to prejudice him against me; for individuals of that class pride
themselves on the idea that the great secret of managing a ship, is
in their hands alone, and that other men are, or ought to be—entirely
ignorant of it.
“Finally, I asked him to examine me, on the mariner’s compass, and on
navigation.
“He readily did so, and the ignorant creature put me some miserable
questions, about the sun’s altitude at noon, and some such matter which
he had been mechanically taught. I answered them, and encouraged all
the while the important and patronizing air which he had assumed. When
we have no money, and desire the accomplishment of any purpose, we must
learn to use towards men, a passport that is equivalent—a sympathy with
their vanity. The result was, that I was immediately granted a passage to
Jamaica, on condition that I should work it.
“As I sailed down the Thames and gazed on the banks of the river, I
became a prey to the saddest reflections. Fancy had often whispered to
me thoughts of a brilliant and happy career. The lightness of heart
with which I began and prosecuted my studies; the happiness which I
derived from them, and my total unacquaintance with the world, had never
permitted me to speculate a moment on the possibility of misfortune or of
distress. I had fondly cherished the hope, that in Europe, the centre of
the highest human civilization, I should have been able one day to bring
down some truth from the stars to mankind, and should have crowned the
labours of a lifetime, with banishing away some of the ignorance in which
the human species was enveloped. But when I experienced the prostration
of want—the prostration that arises not from an enfeebling of the body,
or from a decay of mind, but simply from not possessing the conventional
medium of exchange; when I saw that our most glorious enterprises
are subject, on account of a necessary evil of civilisation, and the
iniquitous habits of mankind, to be blasted; I became persuaded that,
without money, no man can hope to propagate truth; and the difficulty of
carrying my projects into execution was forced upon me. This, however,
could partly be overcome. But as I left Europe, I felt that all hopes of
realizing my designs were gone.
“The ardour which had, however, inflamed me in one pursuit, fired me also
in another, and to it was added the force of unswerving necessity;—that
of visiting on the individual who was the primary source of my
sufferings, the same amount of them as I was enduring.
“But I find I am becoming prolix. It is now late—you and I require rest;
come again to-morrow night and I shall let you hear the other part of
the adventures, which have ended in leaving me a prisoner on board your
father’s ship, and a narrator to you of my history.”
The young officer rose up, and, shaking hands with Appadocca, bade
him good night with that melancholy sympathy which only true and
disinterested friendship can inspire.