XXX.
THE GREAT COMBAT.
Behold me then at the age of twenty-five, innocent of crime, sentenced to the life and labors of a convict! My associates were the lowest ruffians imaginable. My fare was coarse and sometimes revolting. I was locked up alone at night in a dark cell. I slept on a pallet of straw. From sunrise to sunset I was compelled to labor on the public works, chained by the leg to another creature as miserable as myself.
Young as I was, I had already met with strange adventures and made hairbreadth escapes. I was long buoyant and hopeful, and was constantly expecting some lucky turn of the wheel of fortune. There was, indeed, very little rational ground of hope. My uncle Beltrezzor was dead. My sisters had escaped to the other end of the world, and were not likely to return. Not one of the few Christians of the city knew anything about my being there, for I had seen no one but Beltrezzor. Demetrius alone knew my whereabouts, and by command of Simon he had entered a false name for me on the books of the prison. So I was lost and buried from the social world in which I had moved.
I did not believe that my imprisonment would be of long duration. Young, educated, wealthy, I thought I [pg 356]was needed by the infant Church. The subject of the greatest miracle of Christ, my very presence was an argument in favor of Christianity. Then my experiences in the spiritual world had given me knowledge superior to that of all the disciples; knowledge necessary to the organization of the faith upon truly rational principles. To suspect even that one so valuable to the holy cause could be imprisoned for life, without a future, without a mission, was to doubt the wisdom of Providence and the verity of my death and resurrection.