upon this
occasion. He was now, with his old friends, in the state of a poor
disbanded officer after a peace, or rather a wounded soldier after a
battle; like an old favourite of a cunning Minister after the job is
over, or a decayed beauty to a cloyed lover in quest of new game, or
like a hundred such things that one sees every day. There were new
intrigues, new views, new projects, on foot. Jack's life was the
purchase of Diego's friendship; much good may it do them. The interest
of Hocus and Sir William Crawley which was now more at heart, made this
operation upon poor Jack absolutely necessary. You may easily guess
that his rest that night was but small, and much disturbed; however,
the remaining part of his time he did not employ (as his custom was
formerly) in prayer, meditation, or singing a double verse of a Psalm,
but amused himself with disposing of his bank stock. Many a doubt, many
a qualm, overspread his clouded imagination: "Must I then," quoth he,
"hang up my own personal, natural, individual self with these two hands!
Durus Sermo! What if I should be cut down, as my friends tell me? There
is something infamous in the very attempt; the world will conclude I had
a guilty conscience. Is it possible that good man, Sir Roger, can have
so much pity upon an unfortunate scoundrel that has persecuted him so
many years? No, it cannot be; I don't love favours that pass through Don
Diego's hands. On the other side, my blood chills about my heart at
the thought of these rogues with their bloody hands pulling out my very
entrails. Hang it, for once I'll trust my friends." So Jack resolved;
but he had done more wisely to have put himself upon the trial of his
country, and made his defence in form; many things happen between the
cup and the lip--witnesses might have been bribed, juries managed, or
prosecution stopped. But so it was, Jack for this time had a sufficient
stock of implicit faith, which led him to his ruin, as the sequel of the
story shows.

And now the fatal day was come in which he was to try this hanging
experiment. His friends did not fail him at the appointed hour to see it
put in practice. Habakkuk brought him a smooth, strong, tough rope,
made of many a ply of wholesome Scandinavian hemp, compactly twisted
together, with a noose that slipped as glib as a birdcatcher's gin. Jack
shrank and grew pale at first sight of it; he handled it, he measured
it, stretched it, fixed it against the iron bar of the