or the change; but I suppose you would not come to help
at that, even if you have left me here to rot; God only knows how
long; I have forgotten."

I could not restrain the tears at sight of him.

"Your words are more than just," I said; and, being anxious that he
should know at once that my fault had not been so great as it looked,
continued hurriedly: "The king sent me to France upon an hour's
notice, the day after your arrest. I know only too well I should not
have gone without seeing you out of this, but you had enjoined silence
upon me, and--and I trusted to the promises of another."

"I thought as much. You are in no way to blame, my friend; all I ask
is that you never mention the subject again."

"My friend!" Ah! the words were dear to me as words of love from a
sweetheart's lips.

I hardly recognized him, he was so frightfully covered with filth and
dirt and creeping things. His hair and beard were unkempt and matted,
and his eyes and cheeks were lusterless and sunken; but I will
describe him no further. Suffering had well-nigh done its work, and
nothing but the hardihood gathered in his years of camp life and war
could have saved him from death. I bathed and reclothed him as well as
I could at Newgate, and then took him home to Greenwich in a horse
litter, where my man and I thoroughly washed, dressed and sheared the
poor fellow and put him to bed.

"Ah! this bed is a foretaste of paradise," he said, as he lay upon the
mattress.

It was a pitiful sight, and I could hardly refrain from tears. I sent
my man to fetch a certain Moor, a learned scholar, though a hated
foreigner, who lived just off Cheap and sold small arms, and very soon
he was with us. Brandon and I both knew him well, and admired his
learning and gentleness, and loved him for his sweet philosophy of
life, the leaven of which was charity--a modest little plant too
often overshadowed by the rank growth of pompous dogmatism.

The Moor was learned in the healing potions of the east, and insisted,
privately, of course, that all the shrines and relics in Christendom
put together could not cure an ache in a baby's little finger. This,
perhaps, was going too far, for there are some relics that have
undoubted potency, but in cases where human agency can cure, the
people of the east are unquestionably far in advance of us in
knowledge of remedies. The Moor at once gave Brandon a soothing drink,
which soon put him into a sweet sleep. He then bathed