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Marryat, Frederick, 1792-1848

"Monsieur Violet"


As for my two friends, Gabriel and Roche, they had been both seriously
wounded, and it was a long time before they were recovered.
We passed the remainder of the summer in building castles in the air for
the future, and at last agreed to go to Monterey to pass the winter.
Fate, however, ordered otherwise, and a succession of adventures, the
current of which I could not oppose, forced me through many wild scenes
and countries, which I have yet to describe.


CHAPTER XI.

At the beginning of the fall, a few months after my father's death, I
and my two comrades, Gabriel and Roche, were hunting in the rolling
prairies of the South, on the eastern shores of the Buona Ventura. One
evening we were in high spirits, having had good sport. My two friends
had entered upon a theme which they could never exhaust, one pleasantly
narrating the wonders and sights of Paris, the other describing with his
true native eloquence the beauties of his country, and repeating the old
local Irish legends, which appeared to me quaint and highly poetical.
Of a sudden we were surrounded by a party of sixty Arrapahoes; of
course, resistance or flight was useless. Our captors, however, treated
us with honour, contenting themselves with watching us closely and
preventing our escape.


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