After Aldobrand, the serving-men gave witness, telling how they had trapped us in the act, red-handed:  and as for this jewel, they had seen their master handle it any time in these six months past.

But Elzevir was galled to the quick with all their falsehoods, and burst out again, that they were liars and the jewel ours; till a jailer who stood by struck him on the mouth and cut his lip, to silence him.

The process was soon finished, and the judge in his red robes stood up and sentenced us to the galleys for life; bidding us admire the mercy of the law to Outlanders, for had we been but Dutchmen, we should sure have hanged.

Then they took and marched us out of court, as well as we could walk for fetters, and Elzevir with a bleeding mouth.  But as we passed the place where Aldobrand sat, he bows to me and says in English, ’Your servant, Mr. Trenchard.  I wish you a good day, Sir John Trenchard—­of Moonfleet, in Dorset.’  The jailer paused a moment, hearing Aldobrand speak to us though not understanding what he said, so I had time to answer him: 

’Good day, Sir Aldobrand, Liar, and Thief; and may the diamond bring you evil in this present life, and damnation in that which is to come.’

So we parted from him, and at that same time departed from our liberty and from all joys of life.

We were fettered together with other prisoners in droves of six, our wrists manacled to a long bar, but I was put into a different gang from Elzevir.  Thus we marched a ten days’ journey into the country to a place called Ymeguen, where a royal fortress was building.  That was a weary march for me, for ’twas January, with wet and miry roads, and I had little enough clothes upon my back to keep off rain and cold.  On either side rode guards on horseback, with loaded flint-locks across the saddlebow, and long whips in their hands with which they let fly at any laggard; though ’twas hard enough for men to walk where the mud was over the horses’ fetlocks.  I had no chance to speak to Elzevir all the journey, and indeed spoke nothing at all, for those to whom I was chained were brute beasts rather than men, and spoke only in Dutch to boot.

There was but little of the building of the fortress begun when we reached Ymeguen, and the task that we were set to was the digging of the trenches and other earthworks.  I believe that there were five hundred men employed in this way, and all of them condemned like us to galley-work for life.  We were divided into squads of twenty-five, but Elzevir was drafted to another squad and a different part of the workings, so I saw him no more except at odd times, now and again, when our gangs met, and we could exchange a word or two in passing.