"Spare you," he repeated, letting me go and turning
away. And then, fronting me once more : "You little know
what I would do with it, Mackellar ! Did you think I had
swallowed my defeat indeed? Listen : my life has been a
series of unmerited cast-backs. That fool. Prince Charhe,
mismanaged a most promising affair : there fell my first fort-
une. In Paris I had my foot once more high upon the lad-
der : that time it was an accident, a letter came to the wrong
hand, and I was bare again. A third time, I found my
opportunity ; I built up a place for myself in India with an
infinite patience ; and then CUve came, my rajah was swal-
lowed up, and I escaped out of the convulsion, like another
^neas, with Secundra Dass upon my back. Three times I
have had my hand upon the highest station ; and I am not
yet three-and-forty. I know the world as few men know it
when they come to die, court and camp, the east and the
west; I know where to go, I see a thousand openings. I
am now at the height of my resources, sound of health, of
inordinate ambition. "Well, all this I resign; I care not if I
die and the world neVer hear of me ; I care only for one
thing, and that I will have. Mind yourself : lest, when the
roof falls, you too should be crushed under the ruins. ' '

As I came out of his house, all hope of intervention quite
destroyed, I was aware of a stir on the harbor-side, and rais-
ing my eyes, there was a great ship newly come to anchor.
