My friends were separated from me, and apparently forever.

This circumstance caused me more pain than any other incident connected with our capture and imprisonment.

Thirty-nine lashes on my naked and bleeding back, would have been joyfully borne, in preference to this separation from these, the friends of my youth.

And yet, I could not but feel that I was the victim of something like justice.

Why should these young men, who were led into this scheme by me, suffer as much as the instigator?
I felt glad that they were leased from prison, and from the dread prospect of a life (or death I should rather say) in the rice swamps.