Page 392 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

and sleep on a bundle of hides by night! But this is personal
matter, and need not be obtruded.
‘In the same yard with me worked the soldier who had
betrayed us, and I could not but regard it as a special judg-
ment of Heaven when he one day fell from a great height
and was taken up for dead, dying in much torment in a few
hours. The days thus passed on in comparative happiness
until the 20th of May, 1836, when the old Governor took
his departure, regretted by all the inhabitants of Valdivia,
and the Achilles, a one-and-twenty-gun brig of war, arrived
with the new Governor. One of the first acts of this gentle-
man was to sell our boat, which was moored at the back
of Government-house. This proceeding looked to my mind
indicative of ill-will; and, fearful lest the Governor should
deliver us again into bondage, I resolved to make my es-
cape from the place. Having communicated my plans to
Barker, Lesly, Riley, Shiers, and Russen, I offered the Gov-
ernor to get built for him a handsome whale-boat, making
the iron work myself. The Governor consented, and in a lit-
tle more than a fortnight we had completed a four-oared
whale-boat, capable of weathering either sea or storm. We
fitted her with sails and provisions in the Governor’s name,
and on the 4th of July, being a Saturday night, we took our
departure from Valdivia, dropping down the river shortly
after sunset. Whether the Governor, disgusted at the trick
we had played him, decided not to pursue us, or whether—
as I rather think—our absence was not discovered until the
Monday morning, when we were beyond reach of capture, I
know not, but we got out to sea without hazard, and, taking

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