Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/211

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THE STRANGER'S STORY
203

London forthwith, went to the Brazils, traded successfully, retired from business, bought an estate, and now live upon it the owner of slaves and cattle without number; but weakness, not strength, prevailed. With a month before me, and money in my pocket, I did not wait for my fast friends to seek me, but went where I knew I should find them. The month flew by, and several weeks were added to it when, as I was actually on my way out of England, I met a friend on Tower Hill whom I was very glad to see. He seemed to be delighted to see me squeezed my hand heartily, and smiled in my face; he invited me to dinner, but while I was eating it sent for the police. My sentence on this occasion was transportation for life. A convict now, without a hope of pardon.

'Lodged in my old quarters in Newgate again, I resumed my literary pursuits. I now wrote a religious work, which raised up for me a host of enemies. The false representations of these snarling and disreputable people to the Ministry had the effect of putting an end to my useful and benevolent labours in Newgate, and I was shipped off, with many more unfortunate men, sorely against my will, to an island near the South Pole, which your Majesty has never heard of. It was a great and a sad fall; but the discipline, though severe, may possibly have been necessary to cure me of that abominable vice of gambling, of which I believe I am now cured for ever. And now, please your Majesty, as I have told my story without reserve, I most humbly beg and crave that yon will be graciously pleased to give me a place in your honourable Court.

'A place in my Court, thou snivelling idiot!' bellowed the King in a paroxysm of rage. 'Thou art a self-confessed liar, and thou allowest thy wife to beat thee and to curse thee! Away with him to the block: he shall not live, a contemptible coward and fool—he shall die!'

'My ford Cardinal!' said the poor man, as the halberdiers