" I know that this hap hath been
partly related of another person--the shipman Raleigh--but I tell
such as deny me that they lie in their teeth, for I, John Longbowe,
have cause--miserable cause enough, I warrant--to remember it, and
my Lord can bear me out! For, spite of his fair speeches, when he
was quit of the Royal presence, he threw me his wet and bedraggled
cloak and bade me change it with him for mine own, which was dry
and warm. And it was this simple act which wrought the lamentable
and cruel deed of which I was the victim, for, as I followed my
Lord, thus apparelled, across the ice, I was suddenly set upon and
seized, a choke-pear clapt into my mouth so that I could not cry
aloud, mine eyes bandaged, mine elbows pinioned at my side in that
fatall cloak like to a trussed fowl, and so I was carried to where
the ice was broken, and thrust into a boat. Thence I was conveyed
in the same rude sort to a ship, dragged up her smooth, wet side,
and clapt under hatches. Here I lay helpless as in a swoon. When
I came to, it was with a great trampling on the decks above and the
washing of waves below, and I made that the ship was moving--but
where I knew not. After a little space the hatch was lifted from
where I lay, the choke-pear taken from my mouth; but not the
bandage from mine eyes, so I could see nought around me.
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