Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/66

 far; but here the thread was discontinued, and no means which she employed could procure any tidings of him; whether he was captive or dead, continued for several years to be merely matter of conjecture.

"On my return to Dublin, I found my patroness engaged in conversation with a stranger. She introduced us to each other in a manner that indicated the respect which she entertained for us both. I surveyed and listened to him with considerable attention: his aspect was noble and ingenuous; but his sun-burnt and rugged features bespoke a various and boisterous pilgrimage: the furrows of his brow were the products of vicissitude and hardship rather than of age: his accents were fiery and energetic; and the impassioned boldness of his address, as well as the tenor of his discourse, full of allusions to the past, and regrets that the course of events had not been different, made me suspect something extraordinary in his character.

"As soon as he left us, my lady explained who he was:—he was no other than the object of her youthful attachment, who had, a few days before, dropped among us as from the skies. He had a long and various story to tell: he had accounted for his silence by enumerating the incidents of his life.—He had escaped from the prisons of Hyder; had wandered on foot, and under various disguises, through the northern district of Hindostan: he was sometimes a scholar of Benares, and sometimes a disciple of the Mosque; according to the exigencies of the times, he was a pilgrim to Mecca or to Jagunaut. By a long, circuitous, and perilous route, he at length arrived at the Turkish capital. Here he resided for several years, deriving a precarious subsistence from the profession of a surgeon. He was obliged to desert this post, in c0nsequence of a duel between two Scotchmen. One of them had embraced the Greek religion, and was betrothed to the daughter of a wealthy trader of that nation: he perished in the conflict; and the family of the lady not only procured the execution of his antagonist, but threatened to involve all those who were known to be connected with him, in the same ruin.