either Mr. Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor a single individual of
any description, appear against me! The recognizances into which my
prosecutors had entered were declared to be forfeited; and I was
dismissed without further impediment from the bar.

The effect which this incredible reverse produced upon my mind it is
impossible to express. I, who had come to that bar with the sentence of
death already in idea ringing in my ears, to be told that I was free to
transport myself whithersoever I pleased! Was it for this that I had
broken through so many locks and bolts, and the adamantine walls of my
prison; that I had passed so many anxious days, and sleepless,
spectre-haunted nights; that I had racked my invention for expedients of
evasion and concealment; that my mind had been roused to an energy of
which I could scarcely have believed it capable; that my existence had
been enthralled to an ever-living torment, such as I could scarcely have
supposed it in man to endure? Great God! what is man? Is he thus blind
to the future, thus totally unsuspecting of what is to occur in the next
moment of his existence? I have somewhere read, that heaven in mercy
hides from us the future incidents of our life. My own experience does
not well accord with this assertion. In this instance at least I should
have been saved from insupportable labour and undescribable anguish,
could I have foreseen the catastrophe of this most interesting
transaction.

CHAPTER XII.

It was not long before I took my everlasting leave of this detested and
miserable scene. My heart was for the present too full of astonishment
and exultation in my unexpected deliverance, to admit of anxiety about
the future. I withdrew from the town; I rambled with a slow and
thoughtful pace, now bursting with exclamation, and now buried in
profound and undefinable reverie. Accident led me towards the very heath
which had first sheltered me, when, upon a former occasion, I broke out
of my prison. I wandered among its cavities and its valleys. It was a
forlorn and desolate solitude. I continued here I know not how long.
Night at length overtook me unperceived, and I prepared to return for
the present to the town I had quitted.

It was now perfectly dark, when two men, whom I had not previously
observed, sprung upon me from behind. They seized me by the arms, and
threw me upon the ground. I had no time for resistance or recollection.
I could however perceive that one