he night, but
I was overboard and the powder and lead were wasted. The next moment the
boat sank in ten fathoms of water, and with it went the men in armor. I
hope the fisherman saved himself. I have often wondered if even the law of
self-preservation justified my act. It is an awful thing to inflict death,
but it is worse to endure it, and I feel sure that I am foolish to allow
my conscience to trouble me for the sake of those who would have led me
back to the scaffold.

I fear you will think that six dead men in less than as many pages make a
record of bloodshed giving promise of terrible things to come, but I am
glad I can reassure you on that point. Although there may be some good
fighting ahead of us, I believe the last man has been killed of whom I
shall chronicle--the last, that is, in fight or battle.

In truth, the history which you are about to read is not my own. It is the
story of a beautiful, wilful girl, who was madly in love with the one man
in all the world whom she should have avoided--as girls are wont to be.
This perverse tendency, philosophers tell us, is owing to the fact that
the unattainable is strangely alluring to womankind. I, being a man, shall
not, of course, dwell upon the foibles of my own sex. It were a foolish
candor.

As I said, there will be some good fighting ahead of us, for love and
battle usually go together. One must have warm, rich blood to do either
well; and, save religion, there is no source more fruitful of quarrels and
death than that passion which is the source of life.

You, of course, know without the telling, that I reached land safely after
I scuttled the boat, else I should not be writing this forty years
afterwards.

The sun had risen when I waded ashore. I was swordless, coatless, hatless,
and bootless; but I carried a well-filled purse in my belt. Up to that
time I had given no thought to my ultimate destination; but being for the
moment safe, I pondered the question and determined to make my way to
Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, where I was sure a warm welcome would await me
from my cousin, Sir George Vernon. How I found a peasant's cottage,
purchased a poor horse and a few coarse garments, and how in the disguise
of a peasant I rode southward to the English border, avoiding the cities
and the main highways, might interest you; but I am eager to come to my
story, and I will not tell you of my perilous journey.

One frosty morning, after many hairbreadth escapes, I