Presently he
left, and came back with pens, ink, paper, and candles, which be
laid out on my couch without words.
After a little he came again, and laid a book on the improvised
table before me. It was an English Bible. Opening it, I found
inscribed on the fly-leaf, Charles Wainfleet, Chaplain to the
British Army. Gabord explained that this chaplain had been in
the citadel for some weeks; that he had often inquired about me;
that he had been brought from the Ohio; and had known of me, having
tended the lieutenant of my Virginian infantry in his last hours.
Gabord thought I should now begin to make my peace with Heaven,
and so had asked for the chaplain's Bible, which was freely given.
I bade him thank the chaplain for me, and opening the book, I found
a leaf turned down at the words,
"In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these
calamities be overpast."
When I was left alone, I sat down to write diligently that history
of myself which I had composed and fixed in my memory during the
year of my housing in this dungeon. The words came from my pen
freely, and hour after hour through many days, while no single word
reached me from the outside world, I wrote on; carefully revising,
but changing little from that which I had taken so long to record
in my mind. I would not even yet think that they would hang me; and
if they did, what good could brooding do? When the last word of the
memoirs (I may call them so), addressed to Alixe, had been written,
I turned my thoughts to other friends.
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