Pagina 781 van 896

"I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so

fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell

and total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is

no confusion or failure in my memory; it can recall, and could

detail, every word that was ever spoken between me and those

brothers.

"She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand

some few syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close

to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I

was, and I told her. It was in vain that I asked her for her

family name. She faintly shook her head upon the pillow, and kept

her secret, as the boy had done.