Page:Kidnapped in London.djvu/57

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Pleading with My Gaolers for Life.
53

Sir Halliday Macartney (whose name Tang spelt for me, as I did not know how) I handed it to Tang, who went off with it in his possession, and I never saw the intriguer again.

This was no doubt a very stupid thing to have done, as I thereby furnished my enemies with documentary evidence that I had come voluntarily to the Legation. But as a dying man will clutch at anything, so I, in my strait, was easily imposed upon.

Tang had informed me that all my notes had been given up by the servants, so that none of them had reached my friends outside. I then lost all hope, and was persuaded that I was face to face with death.

During the week I had written statements of my plight on any scraps of paper I could get and thrown them out of the window. I had at first given them to the servants to throw out, as my window did