Kikidorian."
Underneath I wrote the following admonition:
"Think of this heavy sin;
Fly ere it be too late:
Shall vice, the pander, newly in,
Bow virtue to the gate?
Let Cupid not ensnare you—
His cunning wiles beware you,
The sweets of sin soon vanish—
Its pains, ah! who can banish."
This letter I sent to the lady, and it had the effect that I expected; her love was changed to the bitterest hatred:—
In vain her glowing tongue would vie,
To tell her frightful agony.
Despairing shame her accents clip;—
They freeze upon her snowy lip.
No tears did flow; such pain oft dries
The blessed current of the eyes:
Fell vengeance from her black orbs glanced,
While like a fury, she advanced.
Nevertheless, she restrained her fury, until she recovered the love-letter she had written to me. As soon as she had secured it, she hired some persons to testify by oath, that, in the absence of his Excellency, I had attempted to violate her. This fable was represented with so much art and speciousness, that the president did not doubt its truth, and I was ordered to be put in prison. In this, my despairing condition, I saw no other means of deliverance than to confess the crime, with which I had been charged, and supplicate the president for mercy: which being done, my life was conceded, but I was doomed to perpetual imprisonment. My charter of nobility was immediately taken from me, and I was sent to the galleys as a slave. My destination was to one of the ships belonging to the republic, which then lay ready to sail for Mezendares, or the Land-of-wonders. Thence were brought the wares that Martinia cannot produce. This ship, on board of which my evil fortune had now cast me, was propelled both by sails and oars; at each oar two slaves were chained: consequently I was attached to another unfortunate. I was consoled, however, by the prospect of a voyage, during which I hoped to find new food and nourishment for my insatiable inquisitiveness, although I did not believe all that the seamen told of the curious things I should see. Several interpreters accompanied us; these being made use of by the Mezendaric merchants in the course of their commercial negotiations.
