his own.

'Ours is a desperate case,' said Martin. 'Plainly. The place is
deserted; its failure must have become known; and selling what we have
bought to any one, for anything, is hopeless, even if it were honest. We
left home on a mad enterprise, and have failed. The only hope left
us, the only one end for which we have now to try, is to quit this
settlement for ever, and get back to England. Anyhow! by any means! only
to get back there, Mark.'

'That's all, sir,' returned Mr Tapley, with a significant stress upon
the words; 'only that!'

'Now, upon this side of the water,' said Martin, 'we have but one friend
who can help us, and that is Mr Bevan.'

'I thought of him when you was ill,' said Mark.

'But for the time that would be lost, I would even write to my
grandfather,' Martin went on to say, 'and implore him for money to free
us from this trap into which we were so cruelly decoyed. Shall I try Mr
Bevan first?'

'He's a very pleasant sort of a gentleman,' said Mark. 'I think so.'

'The few goods we brought here, and in which we spent our money, would
produce something if sold,' resumed Martin; 'and whatever they realise
shall be paid him instantly. But they can't be sold here.'

'There's nobody but corpses to buy 'em,' said Mr Tapley, shaking his
head with a rueful air, 'and pigs.'

'Shall I tell him so, and only ask him for money enough to enable us by
the cheapest means to reach New York, or any port from which we may hope
to get a passage home, by serving in any capacity? Explaining to him
at the same time how I am connected, and that I will endeavour to
repay him, even through my grandfather, immediately on our arrival in
England?'

'Why to be sure,' said Mark: 'he can only say no, and he may say yes. If
you don't mind trying him, sir--'

'Mind!' exclaimed Martin. 'I am to blame for coming here, and I would do
anything to get away. I grieve to think of the past. If I had taken your
opinion sooner, Mark, we never should have been here, I am certain.'

Mr Tapley was very much surprised at this admission, but protested, with
great vehemence, that they would have been there all the same; and that
he had set his heart upon coming to Eden, from the first word he had
ever heard of it.

Martin then read him a letter to Mr Bevan, which he had already
prepared. It was frankly and ingenuously written, and described their
situation without the least concealment; plainly stated the miseries
they had under