As far I am concerned, this story has now reached an end.  With my departure from Aureataland, I re-entered the world of humdrum life, and since that memorable night in 1884, nothing has befallen me worthy of a polite reader’s attention.  I have endured the drudgery incident to earning a living; I have enjoyed the relaxations every wise man makes for himself.  But I should be guilty of unpardonable egotism if I supposed that I myself was the only, or the most, interesting subject presented in the foregoing pages, and I feel I shall merely be doing my duty in briefly recording the facts in my possession concerning the other persons who have figured in this record and the country where its scene was laid.

I did not, of course, return to England on leaving Aureataland.  I had no desire to explain in person to the directors all the facts with which they will now be in a position to acquaint themselves.  I was conscious that, at the last at all events, I had rather subordinated their interests to my own necessities, and I knew well that my conduct I would not meet with the indulgent judgment that it perhaps requires.  After all, men who have lost three hundred thousand dollars can hardly be expected to be impartial, and I saw no reason for submitting myself to a biased tribunal.  I preferred to seek my fortune in a fresh country (and, I may add, under a fresh name), and I am happy to say that my prosperity in the land of my adoption has gone far to justify the President’s favorable estimate of my financial abilities.  My sudden disappearance excited some remark, and people were even found to insinuate that the dollars went the same way as I did.  I have never troubled myself to contradict these scandalous rumors, being content to rely on the handsome vindication from this charge which the President published.  In addressing the House of Assembly shortly after his resumption of power, he referred at length to the circumstances attendant on the late revolution, and remarked that although he was unable to acquit Mr. Martin of most unjustifiable intrigues with the rebels, yet he was in a position to assure them, as he had already assured those to whom Mr. Martin was primarily responsible, that that gentleman’s hasty flight was dictated solely by a consciousness of political guilt, and that, in money matters, Mr. Martin’s hands were as clean as his own.  The reproach that had fallen on the fair fame of Aureataland in this matter was due not to that able but misguided young man, but to those unprincipled persons who, in the pursuit of their designs, had not hesitated to plunder and despoil friendly traders, established in the country under the sanction of public faith.