In process of time I married and had a child.

I believed that I was picked out from my race as a fortunate man--when one night I was attacked by robbers: slaves made desperate by the cruelty of their wealthy masters.

They ravaged my cornfields, they deprived me of my flocks.

When I demanded redress, I was told to sell my lands to those who could defend them--to those rich nobles whose tyranny had organised the band of wretches who had spoiled me of my possessions, and to whose fraud-gotten treasures the government were well pleased to grant that protection which they had denied to my honest hoards.

In my pride I determined that I would still be independent.