to look up
to him, and observed his figure, which was that of a very well-looking
gentleman, well made, of about forty, dressed in a suit of plain
clothes, with a large diamond ring on one of his fingers, the lustre of
which played in my eyes as he waved his hand in talking, and raised my
notions of his importance. In short, he might pass for what is commonly
called a comely black man, with an air of distinction natural to his
birth and condition.

To all his speeches, however, I answered only in tears that flower
plentifully to my relief, and choking up my voice, excused me from
speaking, very luckily, for I should not have known what to say.

The sight, however, moved him, as he afterwards told me, irresistibly,
and by way of giving me some reason to be less powerfully afflicted, he
drew out his purse, and calling for pen and ink, which the landlady was
prepared for, paid her every farthing of her demand, independent of a
liberal gratification which was to follow unknown to me, and taking a
receipt in full, very tenderly forced me to secure it, by guiding my
hand, which he had thrust it into, so as to make me passively put it
into my pocket.

Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melancholic despair, as
my spirits could not yet recover from the violent shocks that they had
received; and the accommodating landlady had actually left the room, and
me alone with this strange gentleman, before I had observed it, and then
I observed it without alarm, for I was now lifeless, and indifferent to
every thing.

The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this sort, drew near me;
and, under the pretence of comforting me, first with his handkerchief
dried my tears as they ran down my cheeks: presently he ventured to kiss
me on my part, neither resistance nor compliance. I sat stock still; and
now looking on myself as bought by the payment that had been transacted
before me.

I did not care what became of my wretched body: and wanting life,
spirits, or courage to oppose the least struggle, even that of the
modesty of my sex, I suffered, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased;
who proceeding insensibly from freedom to freedom, insinuating his hand
between my handkerchief and bosom, which he handled at discretion:
finding thus no repulse, and that every thing favoured, beyond
expectation, the completion of his desires, he took me in his arms, and
bore me, without life or motion, to the bed, on which laying me gentl