'To stand here before you, vanquished, a prisoner in a fortress, and take my own name upon my lips, is painful to the proud.
And yet I wished that you should know me.

Long after this, we may yet hear of one another--perhaps Mr.Gilchrist and myself in the field and from opposing camps--and it would be a pity if we heard and did not recognise.' They were both moved; and began at once to press upon me offers of service, such as to lend me books, get me tobacco if I used it, and the like.

This would have been all mighty welcome, before the tunnel was ready.

Now it signified no more to me than to offer the transition I required.
'My dear friends,' I said--'for you must allow me to call you that, who have no others within so many hundred leagues--perhaps you will think me fanciful and sentimental; and perhaps indeed I am; but there is one service that I would beg of you before all others.

You see me set here on the top of this rock in the midst of your city.