le uneasy as to what next might befall Marian among those
in whose hands we were still captives. At the moment of which I speak,
however, I was too ill to pursue the inquiry as to what had become of
her. The fever I had taken during the night was still strong upon me,
indeed we were all in a very pitiful state, scarce able to move or
speak, and looking more like ghosts than men. It was not till above a
week had passed that I began to shake off the effects of those few
hours' torture; and I sometimes think that I have never yet wholly
recovered from them.

Nor must I spare to mention those other changes which were wrought in
me by that night, passed, I may say, in the Valley of the Shadow of
Death. Up to this time, I perceived on looking back over my previous
adventures, I had been no better than a mad young fool, following
after a will-o'-the-wisp to my own hurt and destruction. And though I
cannot say that that ill-starred and calamitous love of mine for
Marian, which had haunted me since I first saw her in the tavern of
the "Three-decker" at Yarmouth, was abated at this time, yet I think I
did now begin to perceive how evil an influence it had exerted over my
life, and to gradually bring myself to a manlier frame of mind. So
that I no longer hugged myself with false and pernicious hopes of what
could never be brought to pass, but set myself resolutely to uproot
this my besetting weakness, and thus to transfer Marian, as it might
be, from the place of a mistress to that of an old and dear friend.

In all which resolves and efforts at amendments I found myself greatly
helped and encouraged by the recollection of those better thoughts
which had come to me in my distress, when my eyes were opened to the
wickedness of which I had been guilty towards my parents. And from
this time on, through all the vicissitudes I was yet to encounter, I
looked forward steadily to the day when I should turn my feet once
more towards home, and behold my father and my mother, and the simple,
loving face of little Patience Thurstan.

But before that day came there were many things to be done, nor would
I have willingly left the land of Indostan till I had seen the blood
of the English he had so barbarously murdered revenged upon Surajah
Dowlah's head. How this was to be brought about I did not then know,
yet I had a confidence that it would be so, which sustained me. For I
felt that I had witnessed, and been partly victim of, a most heinous