tage was in flames, set alight by
them to burn the evidence of their foul deed. What I did I know not. I
have tried to urge my memory along from the point of my awakening, but
in vain. By what miracle I crawled forth, I cannot tell; but in the
morning I was found by my man lying prone in the garden, half a dozen
paces from the blackened ruins of the cottage, as near death as man may
go and live.

"God willed that I should not die, but it was close upon a year before
I was restored to any semblance of my former self, and then I was so
changed that I was hardly to be recognized as that same joyous, vigorous
lad, who had set out, fowling-piece on shoulder, one fine morning a year
agone. There was grey in my hair, as much as there is now, though I was
but twenty-one; my face was seared and marked as that of a man who had
lived twice my years. It was to my faithful servant that I owed my life,
though I ask myself to-night whether I have cause for gratitude towards
him on that score.

"So soon as I had regained sufficient strength, I went secretly home,
wishing that men might continue to believe me dead. My father I found
much aged by grief, but he was kind and tender with me beyond all words.
From him I had it that our enemies were gone to France; it would seem
they had thought it better to remain absent for a while. He had learnt
that they were in Paris, and hither I determined forthwith to follow
them. Vainly did my father remonstrate with me; vainly did he urge me
rather: to bear my story to the King at Whitehall and seek for justice.
I had been well advised had I obeyed this counsel, but I burned to take
my vengeance with my own hands, and with this purpose I repaired to
France.

"Two nights after my arrival in Paris it was my ill-fortune to be
embroiled in a rough-and-tumble in the streets, and by an ill-chance I
killed a man--the first was he of several that I have sent whither I
am going to-morrow. The affair was like to have cost me my life, but by
another of those miracles which have prolonged it, I was sent instead
to the galleys on the Mediterranean. It was only wanting that, after all
that already I had endured, I should become a galley-slave!

"For twelve long years I toiled at an oar, and waited. If I lived I
would return to England; and if I returned, woe unto those that had
wrecked my life--my body and my soul. I did live, and I did return. The
Civil War had broken out, and I came to throw my sword into t