indeed! How much of evil,--of real accomplished
evil,--had there not occurred to me during the last few days! Every
hope for which I had lived, as I then told myself, had been brought
to sudden extinction by the coming of these men to whom I had been so
pleasant, and who, in their turn, had been so pleasant to me! What
could I do now but just lay myself down and die? And the death of
which I dreamt could not, alas! be that true benumbing death which
we think may put an end, or at any rate give a change, to all our
thoughts. To die would be as nothing; but to live as the late
President of the republic who had fixed his aspirations so high,
would indeed be very melancholy. As President I had still two
years to run, but it occurred to me now that I could not possibly
endure those two years of prolonged nominal power. I should be the
laughing-stock of the people; and as such, it would become me to hide
my head. When this captain should have taken himself and his vessel
back to England, I would retire to a small farm which I possessed at
the farthest side of the island, and there in seclusion would I end
my days. Mrs Neverbend should come with me, or stay, if it so pleased
her, in Gladstonopolis. Jack would become Eva's happy husband,
and would remain amidst the hurried duties of the eager world.
Crasweller, the triumphant, would live, and at last die, amidst the
flocks and herds of Little Christchurch. I, too, would have a small
herd, a little flock of my own, surrounded by no such glories as
those of Little Christchurch,--owing nothing to wealth, or scenery,
or neighbourhood,--and there, till God should take me, I would spend
the evening of my day. Thinking of all this, I went to sleep.

On the next morning Sir Ferdinando Brown and Captain Battleax were
announced at the executive chambers. I had already been there at my
work for a couple of hours; but Sir Ferdinando apologised for the
earliness of his visit. It seemed to me as he entered the room and
took the chair that was offered to him, that he was the greater man
of the two on the occasion,--or perhaps I should say of the three.
And yet he had not before come on shore to visit me, nor had he
made one at our little dinner-party. "Mr Neverbend," began the
captain,--and I observed that up to that moment he had generally
addressed me as President,--"it cannot be denied that we have come
here on an unpleasant mission. You have received us with all that
courtesy and hospit