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 could not see for want of light. I began to cast
about me, to examine the size of the bunk, which I found to be narrow,
and plainly at some distance from the deck, for I laid hold upon one of
the rough beams above me. By its curvature I knew it to be a knee, and
thus I came to the caulked sides of the vessel, and for the first time
heard the rattling thud and swish of water on the far side of it. I had
no sooner made this discovery, which drew from me an involuntary groan,
when a ship's lanthorn was of a sudden thrust over me, and I perceived
behind it a head covered with shaggy hair and beard, and beetling brows.
Never had I been in such a terrifying presence.

"Damn my blood and bones, life signals at last! Another three bells
gone, my silks and laces, and we had given you to the sharks."

The man hung his lanthorn to a hook on the beam, and thrust a case-bottle
of rum toward me, at the same time biting off a great quid of tobacco.
For all my alarm I saw that his manner was not unkindly, and as I was
conscious of a consuming thirst I seized and tipped it eagerly.

"'Tis no fine Madeira, my blood," said he, "such as I fancy your palate
is acquainted with. Yet 'tis as fair a Jamaica as ever Griggs put ashore
i' the dark."

"Griggs!" I cried, the whole affair coming to me: Griggs, Upper
Marlboro',