I was still silent; my difficulties were increasing every moment; and as they thickened around me, I needed time to decide how to proceed.
Perhaps my anxious appearance may have struck him, for he quickly said,—
“You will be specially warned against saying anything which might criminate yourself, so that you need have no fears on that account.”
These words at once suggested my course to me; and whatever peril there might lie in the way, I determined to take shelter under the pretence that I was myself implicated in the conspiracy. I do not seek to excuse myself for such a subterfuge; it was the last refuge I saw in the midst of my difficulties, and I sought it in all the misery of half-desperation.
“I am not going to betray my confederates, sir,” was my dogged reply to his appeal; and no other could all their argument and entreaties obtain from me.
Some of those present could not believe me guilty, and warmly pressed me to rescue myself, ere too late, from the odious imputation; others but saw their previous impressions confirmed by what they called my confession; and, between them, my poor head was racked and tortured by turns. The scene ended at last by my being committed to Newgate, under suspicion, and till further evidence could be adduced against me.
It was clear that either they greatly doubted of my guilt, or were disposed to regard me as very slightly implicated, for I was not confined in a cell or with the other prisoners, but accommodated with a room in the jailer's own apartment, and received as a guest at his table.
I was not only treated with kindness and attention here, but with a degree of candor that amazed me. The daily papers were freely placed before me, and I read how a well-known member of the “French Convention,” popularly called Couvre-Tête, but styling himself the Count de Gabriac, had been brought up before the magistrates under a charge of a grave description, which, for the ends of justice, had been investigated with closed doors. Several others were in custody for their implication in the same charge, it was added, and great hopes maintained that the guilty parties would be made amenable to the law.
Mr. Holt, the jailer, spoke of all the passing events of the day freely in my presence, and discussed the politics and position of France, and the condition of parties, with all the ease of old intimacy between us. At first, I half suspected this to be a mere artifice to lure me on to some unguarded expression, or even some frank admission about myself; but I gradually grew out of this impression, and saw him as he really was, a straightforward, honorable man, endeavoring to lighten the gloom of a dreary duty by acts of generosity and benevolence. Save that it was captivity, I really had nothing to complain of in my life at this period. Mr. Holt's family was numerous, and daily some two or three guests, generally persons in some degree placed similarly to myself, were present at his table; and with these my time passed smoothly and even swiftly along.
The confinement, however, and a depression, of which I was not conscious myself, at length made their impression on my health, and one morning Mr. Holt remarked to me that I was scarcely looking so well as usual.