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"On the fourteenth."

"The day I left England!"

"Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be

others--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, and

condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he

said your life was not your own."

"But there are no such decrees yet?"

"What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders;

"there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would

you have?"