The whole of his companion's manner, tone, and language surprised Dudley not a little. There was an elevation in it, a sense of dignity which he might have concluded would have been totally extinguished by a criminal conviction; but Dudley had not read the character of Norries quite aright. There are men, and he was one of them, who, taking to their heart some great principle, religious, moral, or political, have their reward, their encouragement, and their consolation in following its dictates, and seeking by any means to attain the objects which it sets before them. They build a pyramid of thought, and its vastness sinks every other thing into vain insignificance. I have already shown the principles which Norries had adopted, and the objects that he sought; and let it not be supposed that, because sometimes he did seek those objects by means that his own heart condemned, he had any motives of personal ambition, any dreams of individual greatness in the future to gratify. With a mistake, not at all uncommon in politics as well as in religion, he fancied that the end not only justified the means, but dignified it. Nay, more; he felt proud of every sacrifice which he made for the one great principle. The sacrifice of wealth, of station, of profession, of friendship, of prejudices or opinions, of liberty, ay, of life itself, were all in his eyes honourable, if incurred in the pursuit of his grand object. To be branded as a felon, to be sent forth from his native country as a convict, ay, to work as a slave, had it been required as a consequence of his assertion of his wild notions of liberty, would have only added to his personal dignity in his own eyes, and to the dignity of the cause for which he suffered. Dudley had never met with a political fanatic before; and though he soon learned to comprehend his companion's feelings, it at first struck him as somewhat surprising to find his manner prouder, and his tone more elevated, as a convict in a distant land, than they had appeared when free in his own country. In answer to his last words, however--words which puzzled him as much as the manner in which they were spoken, he replied, "There is no probability, Mr. Norries, of my ever returning to my own land. Perhaps you are unaware, that for an offence in which I had no share, I was condemned to transportation for life. Indignant and disgusted, indeed, by the scene to which I was transferred, the cruel tyranny on one part, and the wickedness and vice on the other, I contrived to escape, and made my way hither, concealed on board a whaler, and I must therefore request you to mention to no one that you have seen me. I find, indeed, that of all punishments one of the most terrible is solitude; and I was on my way to visit you, even for a day's relief, when I met you here. But there is no chance whatsoever of my even attempting to revisit England."