"He told me that the week before he had been summoned to the death-
bed of an old seaman, Captain Vando, who had confessed that over
twenty years before, while sailing from Boston to Palermo, two days
after a very bad fog, he had picked up at sea a small open boat in
which were two men, both of whom at first seemed dead. One, it was
Captain Hawkins, was beyond all help; he was frozen to death,--frozen
to death, Alice, in an effort to save my life, for, besides my own
coat, his was found tucked around me.
"After hours of work, I was brought back to life,--but a life worse
than death. The Captain told Father Paolo that my mind was a blank, I
could remember nothing of my past, I did not know my name. Then
temptation came to Captain Vando. He took from me my belt, in which I
had some English gold, a few English bank-notes, and the five bills
of exchange, each for a thousand pounds. The latter he did not dare
to dispose of, but the money he appropriated to his own use. He soon
found I could be of no use to him on ship-board, so, on his arrival
at Palermo, he sold me to a rich planter, for a hundred lire, and I
was put to work in the orange groves.
"Captain Vando in his confession told Father Paolo that he still had
my belt containing the bills of exchange, and before his death he
delivered these over to the priest. After the Captain's death, Father
Paolo went to Signor Matrosa, who, when confronted with the facts,
admitted I had been sold to him, and that I was known under the name
of Alessandro Nondra, but he told him that I had been mixed up in a
fight, and had received such a bad wound that I had been sent to the
hospital.
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