'It is true, Sir.'
'You have been given by the King to some great Lord or other, I know not whom, and by him sold to the man Penne, who hath put you on board this ship, the "Jolly Thatcher," Port of London, to be conveyed, with a hundred prisoners, all rogues and thieves, to the Island of Barbadoes, where you will presently be sold as a servant for ten years; after which period, if you choose, you will be at liberty to return to England.'
Then, indeed, the Captain before me seemed to reel about, and I fell fainting at his feet.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
This was indeed the truth: I had parted with my money on the word of a villain; I put myself into his power by telling him the whole of my sad story; and, on the promise of sending me by ship to my cousins in New England, he had entered my name as a rebel sold to himself (afterwards I learned that he made it appear as if I was one of the hundred given to Mr. Jerome Nipho, all of whom he afterwards bought and sent to the Plantations), and he had then shipped me on board a vessel on the point of sailing with as vile a company of rogues, vagabonds, thieves, and drabs as were ever raked together out of the streets and the prisons.
When I came to my senses the Captain gave me a glass of cordial, and made me sit down on a gun-carriage while he asked me many questions. I answered him all truthfully, concealing only the reason of my flight and of my visit to Taunton, where, I told him truly, I hoped to see my unhappy friend Miss Susan Blake, of whose imprisonment and death I knew nothing.