“Amongst our prisoners was an old Indian, whom some of our officers
supposed to have a treasure hidden somewhere; which is no uncommon
practice in that country. They pressed him to discover it. He declared
he had none, but that would not satisfy them, so they ordered him to be
tied to a stake, and suffer fifty lashes every morning till he should
learn to speak out, as they said. Oh! Mr. Harley, had you seen him, as I
did, with his hands bound behind him, suffering in silence, while the big
drops trickled down his shrivelled cheeks and wet his grey beard, which
some of the inhuman soldiers plucked in scorn! I could not bear it, I
could not for my soul, and one morning, when the rest of the guard were
out of the way, I found means to let him escape. I was tried by a
court-martial for negligence of my post, and ordered, in compassion of my
age, and having got this wound in my arm and that in my leg in the
service, only to suffer three hundred lashes and be turned out of the
regiment; but my sentence was mitigated as to the lashes, and I had only
two hundred. When I had suffered these I was turned out of the camp, and
had betwixt three and four hundred miles to travel before I could reach a
sea-port, without guide to conduct me, or money to buy me provisions by
the way. I set out, however, resolved to walk as far as I could, and
then to lay myself down and die. But I had scarce gone a mile when I was
met by the Indian whom I had delivered. He pressed me in his arms, and
kissed the marks of the lashes on my back a thousand times; he led me to
a little hut, where some friend of his dwelt, and after I was recovered
of my wounds conducted me so far on my journey himself, and sent another
Indian to guide me through the rest. When we parted he pulled out a
purse with two hundred pieces of gold in it. ‘Take this,’ said he, ‘my
dear preserver, it is all I have been able to procure.’
“I begged him not to bring himself to poverty for my sake, who should
probably have no need of it long, but he insisted on my accepting it. He
embraced me. ‘You are an Englishman,’ said he, ‘but the Great Spirit has
given you an Indian heart, may He bear up the weight of your old age, and
blunt the arrow that brings it rest!’
“We parted, and not long after I made shift to get my passage to England.
’Tis but about a week since I landed, and I am going to end my days in
the arms of my son. This sum may be of use to him and his children, ’tis
all the value I put upon it. I thank Heaven I never was covetous of
wealth; I never had much, but was always so happy as to be content with
my little.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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