aving the life of
one who appeared to be a gentleman and a man of feeling; especially one
who had gone through so many hardships as he had.

"Ah, indeed I have!" he answered. "Because I loved Protestant truth,
and desired to worship God according to the dictates of my conscience, I
was cruelly deprived of my property, and my wife and child snatched from
me--while I was carried off, and after undergoing numberless hardships,
was sent on board a galley, associated with many of the greatest
villains and most hardened wretches in the country! I was not entirely
alone with them, however, for many other Huguenots were suffering with
me, and we were thus enabled to support and console each other. But,
alas! I might have borne the loss of my liberty, and my property, and
the sufferings and hardships I had to go through, but I could not bear
the thought of being separated from my beloved wife and our sweet
daughter, and never being able to gain tidings of them. Even now I know
not whether they escaped from France, or whether they suffered as did
many who were attempting to fly from the country. Sometimes I fancy
that they are alive, but whether the child and mother are still together
I know not, or whether they have been separated by our cruel enemies.
The fate of our little girl often presses heavily on me. I think
sometimes she may have been seized by the Romanists and brought up in
their faith, as have many children who have been taken from Huguenots."

Jack did his best to console his new friend, and assured him, as he had
done before, that he would be kindly treated in England, and that
perhaps his Protestant countrymen could give him some tidings of his
wife.

"My only hope is that she may have returned to Holland," he said, "to
which country she belonged, though she had resided many years in France.
It was also my father's country, but by right of my mother I inherited
a property in France--though little did I think at the time when I went
to take possession of it, that it would have cost me all the suffering I
have endured! As I had become a naturalised Frenchman, so as a
Frenchman I was treated; but I love the country of my ancestors and my
wife's country, and would gladly return to that. Indeed, could I effect
my escape, I would do so, as I have some property there which the French
have not been able to take from me."

Jack listened with great interest to this account.

"I was acquainted a few years ago w