under me before she had taken her leap, and we fell
heavily together. And I was scarcely up again and my sword drawn, when
the villains were pressing me from all sides. I remember spitting but
one, and then I heard a great seafaring oath, the first word out of their
mouths, and I was felled from behind with a mighty blow.

THE "BLACK MOLL"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE "BLACK MOLL"

I have no intention, my dears, of dwelling upon that part of my
adventures which must be as painful to you as to me, the very
recollection of which, after all these years, suffices to cause the blood
within me to run cold. In my youth men whose natures shrank not from
encounter with their enemies lacked not, I warrant you, a checkered
experience. Those of us who are wound the tightest go the farthest and
strike the hardest. Nor is it difficult for one, the last of whose life
is being recorded, to review the outspread roll of it, and trace the
unerring forces which have drawn for themselves.

Some, indeed, traverse this world weighing, before they partake, pleasure
and business alike. But I am not sure, my children, that they better
themselves; or that God, in His all-wise judgment, prefers them to such
as are guided by the divine impulse with which He has endowed them. Far
be it from me to advise rashness or imprudence, as such; nor do I believe
you will take me so. But I say unto you: do that which is right, and let
God, not man, be your interpreter.

My narrative awaits me.

I came to my wits with an immoderate feeling of faintness and sickness,
with no more remembrance of things past than has a man bereft of reason.
And for some time I swung between sense and oblivion before an
overpowering stench forced itself upon my nostrils, accompanied by a
creaking, straining sound and sweeping motion. I could see nothing for
the pitchy blackness. Then I recalled what had befallen me, and cried
aloud to God in my anguish, for I well knew I had been carried aboard
ship, and was at sea. I had oftentimes heard of the notorious press-gang
which supplied the need of the King's navy, and my first thought was that
I had fallen in their clutches. But I wondered that they had dared
attack a person of my consequence.

I had no pain. I lay in a bunk that felt gritty and greasy to the touch,
and my hair was matted behind by a clot of blood. I had been stripped of
my clothes, and put into some coarse and rough material, the colour and
condition of which I