Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/210

202 begged her to intercede, as it would be ruinous for me to be shut out that night, having a cartload of smuggled goods coming, which would stand a good chance of being seized if I were not at hand to receive them. In addition to the two handkerchiefs I promised her some very advantageous bargains when the goods came up. My story went to the honest woman's heart; I was invited into the gatehouse, regaled with supper, and accommodated with a bed. In the morning I fortified myself with a hearty breakfast, and in great astonishment that my cartload of goods had not come up, I walked out to see what had detained it.'

'I understand,' said the King; 'you told a falsehood; you had no cartload of goods coming.'

'No, your Majesty; it was an invention of mine to enable me to surmount a difficulty.'

'Ha! Proceed.'

'The want of a passport, sire, sharpened my wits. From the Continent I crossed over to London, and, notwithstanding my delays and delinquencies, received the approbation of my employer, and a liberal reward for my services. Led on still by my evil genius, from whose fangs I had been so often unaccountably rescued, I again sank into the vortex of gambling, and spent three years in the wicked and senseless excitement. At length an ungrateful and cunning wretch, a fellow-lodger of mine, laid a scheme to ruin me, and it succeeded only too well. I was arrested one day on a charge of having pawned some property belonging to my landlady; I was tried at the Old Bailey, and had the mortification to receive a sentence of seven years' transportation. Detained in Newgate until my innocence was made manifest, I had the pleasure of being pardoned on condition that I should quit the kingdom within a month of the day of my liberation.

'Your Majesty will now fully expect to hear that I turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of my fast friends; that I left