I did not feel frightened, only hopeless, quite
hopeless, a sort of dead feeling. I remember looking at the
soldiers getting ready to shoot us. I wondered which would shoot
me. They seemed so slow about it. There was some hitch, I think,
in filling up the line; a man had proved his innocence or
something.
Then, the next instant, there was Aurelia dragging the
white-faced man from his table. I dimly remember him ordering me
to be released, while Sir Travers Carew gave me brandy. I
remember the young sullen-looking man's face; for he looked at
me, a look of dull wonder, with a sort of hopeless envy in it,
which has wrung my heart daily, ever since. "Mount," said
Aurelia. "Mount, Martin. For God's sake, Uncle Travers, let us
get out of this." They were on both sides of me each giving me an
arm in the saddle, as we rode out of that field of death through
Zoyland village towards the old Abbey near Chard.
I shall say little more, except that I never saw my master again.
When they led him to the scaffold on Tower Hill I was outward
bound to the West Indies, as private secretary to Sir Travers,
newly appointed Governor of St. Eulalie. We had many of
Monmouth's men in St. Eulalie after the Bloody Assizes; but their
tale is too horrible to tell here. You will want to know whether
I ever saw Aurelia again. Not for some years, not very often for
nine years; but since then our lives have been so mingled that
when we die it will be hard to say which soul is which, so much
our spirits are each other's.
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