There are some things in this world so unbelievable that even when we know them to be true we still remain in a state of semi-scepticism.

 

When our unfortunate midshipman awoke next morning, raised himself on his elbow, and felt that all his bones and muscles were stiff and pained from lying on a stone floor, it was some time before he could make out where he was, or recall the events of the last few days. The first thing that revived his sluggish memory was the scuttling away, in anxious haste, of a scorpion that had sought and found comfortable quarters during the night under the lee of his right leg. Starting up, he crushed the reptile with his foot.

 

“You will get used to that,” said a quietly sarcastic voice with a slightly foreign accent, close to him.

 

The speaker was a middle-aged man with grey hair, hollow cheeks, and deep sunken eyes.

 

“They trouble us a little at first,” he continued, “but, as I have said, we get used to them. It is long since I cared for scorpions.”

 

“Have you, then, been long here?” asked Foster.

 

“Yes. Twelve years.”

 

“A prisoner?—a slave?” asked the midshipman anxiously.

 

“A prisoner, yes. A slave, yes—a mummified man; a dead thing with life enough to work, but not yet quite a brute, more’s the pity, for then I should not care! But here I have been for twelve years—long, long years! It has seemed to me an eternity.”

 

“It is a long time to be a slave. God help you, poor man!” exclaimed Foster.

 

“You will have to offer that prayer for yourself, young man,” returned the other; “you will need help more than I. At first we are fools, but time makes us wise. It even teaches Englishmen that they are not unconquerable.”

 

The man spoke pointedly and in a harsh sarcastic tone which tended to check Foster’s new-born compassion; nevertheless, he continued to address his fellow-sufferer in a sympathetic spirit.

 

“You are not an Englishman, I think,” he said, “though you speak our language well.”

 

“No, I am French, but my wife is English.”

 

“Your wife! Is she here also?”

 

“Thank God—no,” replied the Frenchman, with a sudden burst of seriousness which was evidently genuine. “She is in England, trying to make up the sum of my ransom. But she will never do it. She is poor. She has her daughter to provide for besides herself, and we have no friends. No, I have hoped for twelve years, and hope is now dead—nearly dead.”

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