accident, they should have got an intimation of my
disguise? It was infinitely more distressing to encounter them upon this
narrow stage, and under these pointed circumstances, than, as I had
before encountered my pursuers, under the appearance of an indifferent
person. My recollection however did not forsake me. I confided in my
conscious disguise and my Irish brogue, as a rock of dependence against
all accidents.

No sooner did we appear upon deck than, to my great consternation, I
could observe the attention of our guests principally turned upon me.
They asked a few frivolous questions of such of my fellow passengers as
happened to be nearest to them; and then, turning to me, enquired my
name, who I was, whence I came, and what had brought me there? I had
scarcely opened my mouth to reply, when, with one consent, they laid
hold of me, said I was their prisoner, and declared that my accent,
together with the correspondence of my person, would be sufficient to
convict me before any court in England. I was hurried out of the vessel
into the boat in which they came, and seated between them, as if by way
of precaution, lest I should spring overboard, and by any means escape
them.

I now took it for granted that I was once more in the power of Mr.
Falkland; and the idea was insupportably mortifying and oppressive to my
imagination. Escape from his pursuit, freedom from his tyranny, were
objects upon which my whole soul was bent. Could no human ingenuity and
exertion effect them? Did his power reach through all space, and his
eye penetrate every concealment? Was he like that mysterious being, to
protect us from whose fierce revenge mountains and hills, we are told,
might fall on us in vain? No idea is more heart-sickening and tremendous
than this. But, in my case, it was not a subject of reasoning or of
faith; I could derive no comfort, either directly from the unbelief
which, upon religious subjects, some men avow to their own minds; or
secretly from the remoteness and incomprehensibility of the conception:
it was an affair of sense; I felt the fangs of the tiger striking deep
into my heart.

But though this impression was at first exceedingly strong, and
accompanied with its usual attendants of dejection and pusillanimity, my
mind soon began, as it were mechanically, to turn upon the consideration
of the distance between this sea-port and my county prison, and the
various opportunities of escape that might offer thems