youwill take my advice."
"How's that?" said I.
"Why, only," says he, "that the next time thou talkest with the devil,thou wilt talk a little softlier, or we shall be all undone, and youtoo."
This frighted me, I must confess, and allayed a great deal of thetrouble of mind I was in. But William, after he had done jesting withme, entered upon a very long and serious discourse with me about thenature of my circumstances, and about repentance; that it ought to beattended, indeed, with a deep abhorrence of the crime that I had tocharge myself with; but that to despair of God's mercy was no part ofrepentance, but putting myself into the condition of the devil; indeed,that I must apply myself with a sincere, humble confession of my crime,to ask pardon of God, whom I had offended, and cast myself upon Hismercy, resolving to be willing to make restitution, if ever it shouldplease God to put it in my power, even to the utmost of what I had inthe world. And this, he told me, was the method which he had resolvedupon himself; and in this, he told me, he had found comfort.
I had a great deal of satisfaction in William's discourse, and itquieted me very much; but William was very anxious ever after about mytalking in my sleep, and took care to lie with me always himself, and tokeep me from lodging in any house where so much as a word of English wasunderstood.
However, there was not the like occasion afterward; for I was muchmore composed in my mind, and resolved for the future to live a quitedifferent life from what I had done. As to the wealth I had, I lookedupon it as nothing; I resolved to set it apart to any such opportunityof doing justice as God should put into my hand; and the miraculousopportunity I had afterwards of applying some parts of it to preservea ruined family, whom I had plundered, may be worth reading, if I haveroom for it in this account.
With these resolutions I began to be restored to some degree of quietin my mind; and having, after almost three months' stay at Bassorah,disposed of some goods, but having a great quantity left, we hiredboats according to the Dutchman's direction, and went up to Bagdad,or Babylon, on the river Tigris, or rather Euphrates. We had a veryconsiderable cargo of goods with us, and therefore made a greatfigure there, and were received with respect. We had, in particular,two-and-forty bales of Indian stuffs of sundry sorts, silks, muslins,and fine chintz; we had fifteen bales of very fine China silks, andseventy packs or bales of spices, particularly cloves and nutmegs, withother goods. We were bid money here for our cloves, but the Dutchmanadvised us not to part with them, and told us we should get a betterprice at Aleppo, or in the Levant; so we prepared for the caravan.
We concealed our having any gold or pearls as much as we could, andtherefore sold three or four bales of China silks and Indian calicoes,to raise money to buy camels and to pay the customs which are taken atseveral places, and for our provisions over the deserts.
I travelled this journey, careless to the last degree of my goods orwealth, believing that, as I came by it all by rapine and violence, Godwould direct that it should be taken from me again in the same manner;and, indeed, I think I might say I was very willing it should be so.But, as I had a merciful Protector above me, so I had a most faithfulsteward, counsellor, partner, or whatever I might call him, who was myguide, my pilot, my governor, my everything, and took care both of meand of all we had; and though he had never been in any of these partsof the world, yet he took the care of all upon him; and in aboutnine-and-fifty days we arrived from Bassorah, at the mouth of theriver Tigris or Euphrates, through the desert, and through Aleppo toAlexandria, or, as we call it, Scanderoon, in the Levant.
Here William and I, and the other two, our faithful comrades, debatedwhat we should do; and here William and I resolved to separate from theother two, they resolving to go with the Dutchman into Holland, by themeans of some Dutch ship which lay then in the road. William and I toldthem we resolved to go and settle in the Morea, which then belonged tothe Venetians.
It is true we acted wisely in it not to let them know whither wewent, seeing we had resolved to separate; but we took our old doctor'sdirections how to write to him in Holland, and in England, that we mighthave intelligence from him on occasion, and promised to give him anaccount how to write to us, which we afterwards did, as may in time bemade out.
We stayed here some time after they were gone, till at length, not beingthoroughly resolved whither to go till then, a Venetian ship touched atCyprus, and put in at Scanderoon to look for freight home. We took thehint, and bargaining for our passage, and the freight of our goods, weembarked for Venice, where, in two-and-twenty days, we arrived safe,with all our treasure, and with such a cargo, take our goods and ourmoney and our jewels together, as, I believed, was never brought intothe city by two single men, since the state of Venice had a being.
We kept ourselves here _incognito_ for a great while, passing for twoArmenian merchants still, as we had done before; and by this time we hadgotten so much of the Persian and Armenian jargon, which they talked atBassorah and Bagdad, and everywhere that we came in the country, aswas sufficient to make us able to talk to one another, so as not to beunderstood by anybody, though sometimes hardly by ourselves.
Here we converted all our effects into money, settled our abode as fora considerable time, and William and I, maintaining an inviolablefriendship and fidelity to one another, lived like two brothers; weneither had or sought any separate interest; we conversed seriously andgravely, and upon the subject of our repentance continually; we neverchanged, that is to say, so as to leave off our Armenian garbs; and wewere called, at Venice, the two Grecians.
I had been two or three times going to give a detail of our wealth, butit will appear incredible, and we had the greatest difficulty in theworld how to conceal it, being justly apprehensive lest we might beassassinated in that country for our treasure. At length William told mehe began to think now that he must never see England any more, andthat indeed he did not much concern himself about it; but seeing we hadgained so great wealth, and he had some poor relations in England, ifI was willing, he would write to know if they were living, and to knowwhat condition they were in, and if he found such of them were aliveas he had some thoughts about, he would, with my consent, send themsomething to better their condition.
I consented most willingly; and accordingly William wrote to a sisterand an uncle, and in about five weeks' time received an answer from themboth, directed to himself, under cover of a hard Armenian name thathe had given himself, viz., Signore Constantine Alexion of Ispahan, atVenice.
It was a very moving letter he received from his sister, who, after themost passionate expressions of joy to hear he was alive, seeing she hadlong ago had an account that he was murdered by the pirates in the WestIndies, entreats him to let her know what circumstances he was in; tellshim she was not in any capacity to do anything considerable for him, butthat he should be welcome to her with all her heart; that she was lefta widow, with four children, but kept a little shop in the Minories, bywhich she made shift to maintain her family; and that she had sent himfive pounds, lest he should want money, in a strange country, to bringhim home.
I could see the letter brought tears out of his eyes as he read it; and,indeed, when he showed it to me, and the little bill for five pounds,upon an English merchant in Venice, it brought tears out of my eyes too.
After we had been both affected sufficiently with the tenderness andkindness of this letter, he turns to me; says he, "What shall I do forthis poor woman?" I mused a while; at last says I, "I will tell you whatyou shall do for her. She has sent you five pounds, and she has fourchildren, and herself, that is five; such a sum, from a poor woman inher circumstances, is as much as five thousand pounds is to us; youshall send her a bill of exchange for five thousand pounds Englishmoney, and bid her conceal her surprise at it till she hears from youagain; but bid her leave off her shop, and go and take a house somewherein the country, not far off from London, and stay there, in a moderatefigure, till she hears from you again."
"Now," says William, "I perceive by it that you have some thoughts ofv
enturing into England."
"Indeed, William," said I, "you mistake me; but it presently occurred tome that you should venture, for what have you done that you may not beseen there? Why should I desire to keep you from your relations, purelyto keep me company?"
William looked very affectionately upon me. "Nay," says he, "we haveembarked together so long, and come together so far, I am resolved Iwill never part with thee as long as I live, go where thou wilt, or staywhere thou wilt; and as for my sister," said William, "I cannot send hersuch a sum of money, for whose is all this money we have? It is most ofit thine."
"No, William," said I, "there is not a penny of it mine but what isyours too, and I won't have anything but an equal share with you, andtherefore you shall send it to her; if not, I will send it."
"Why," says William, "it will make the poor