“Why don’t you mount, sir?” says he.
“The beast can’t carry both of us,” says I, starting the horse and running by his side, as though accompanying him, “and your life is of more value than mine.”
“Sir,” he cried, very angry, and striving to stop the horse, “have you forgot that I am a gentleman, and I hope, a Christian, and do you look for me to leave you to perish?”
“Sir,” says I, “I owe a great obligation to Mademoiselle de Tourvel, and do desire to acquit myself on’t. And moreover, you have her ladyship to consider, to whom you owe love and protection for the rest of your life, and I have no one that need care whether I live or die. I have often been weary of my life, and I am well pleased for’t to end in such a manner as this.”
“Am I to forsake you, my friend, the man that saved me out of my captivity and brought me back to hope?” cries he. “Never, sir! Let us mount together, if you will, and seek to escape so long as we may, and then die fighting back to back, like men.”
“No, sir,” says I, “for this I will tell you, which I had not looked ever to tell any living soul again. There has come to me in my past life an irreparable loss, so great as nothing imaginable can avail to compensate me therefor, and after this I don’t care to live longer. Mademoiselle de Tourvel will unfold my meaning to you if you ask her; but I pray you, ask no more of me.”
The viscount looked down into my face, and saw, as I fancy, my history wrote there plain, for he took away his eyes, and “May God help you, sir,” says he.
“You perceive by this, sir,” says I, “that ’tis your duty to live for her ladyship, and mine to enable you so to do. Go on and reach safety, and enjoy your happiness with Madam Heliodora, and bid her forgive me and think kindly of me. Farewell, and God be with you.”
But he would not depart thus, and stopping the horse, catched me in his arms and embraced me, after the French fashion, weeping the while, until I bid him hasten on, or he should yet be taken. And at this he went on, yet with many tears, and turning round for to bid me farewell once more, and I was left behind, panting from the running and the turmoil of my thoughts, but joyful and glad of heart for that by my sacrifice I had secured the happiness of that noble lady and her servant.
Now my constant enemies (for indeed my enemies are as constant and as curious in their arts as were ever the friends of Job) are accustomed to declare that I acted thus from I don’t know what wicked design, or else that I had good reason to suppose the means of rescue to be near at hand, which indeed I could not, unless by the aid of prophetic powers, to the which I don’t pretend. But in answer to these persons, I may confess, although it be but a sorry confession for an Englishman and one that hath seen many climates, that when I had suffered my friend to depart, and turned my eyes to behold the advance of those bloody and brutal men, that were now close upon me, ’twas with the greatest trembling that ever I felt in my life.