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All these considerations thronged into his mind as he plodded along the slippery footpath which led through the forest to the wooden gate. When Tom and the major arrived at Waterloo Station, the latter in the breathless condition described in a preceding chapter, they found the German waiting for them with his two fellow-exiles.
The stranding of her young life on that unknown shore had not drawn her towards her fellow-exiles, and the circumstances which afterwards separated her from daily contact with them completed the social estrangement. She found herself more in sympathy with the natives, to whom she had shown no familiarity, than with her own people, who had mixed with them more or less contemptuously.
“Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz,” Bahá’u’lláh is reported by one of His fellow-exiles to have stated, “banished Us to this country in the greatest abasement, and since his object was to destroy Us and humble Us, whenever the means of glory and ease presented themselves, We did not reject them.” “Now, praise be to God,” He, moreover, as reported by Nabíl in his narrative, once remarked, “it has reached the point when all the people of these regions are manifesting their submissiveness unto Us.” And again, as recorded in that same narrative: “The Ottoman Sulṭán, without any justification, or reason, arose to oppress Us, and sent Us to the fortress of Akká.
The exiles take the bread and sell it for drink at the tavern. One exile, a tattered, closely shaven old man, whose eyes had been knocked out in the tavern by his fellow-exiles, hearing that there was a traveller in the room and taking me for a merchant, began singing and repeating the prayers.
The poor monks were much distressed, and laid the letter before their guest, who could, of course, do no other than depart. "He who feeds the birds of the air, and clothes the lilies of the field, will provide for me and my fellow-exiles," said he; and he soon after received an invitation from the King of France to choose any castle or convent in his dominions for his abode.
The splendid welcome accorded him by the learned and highly esteemed Shaykh Yúsúf, the Muftí of Nazareth, who acted as host to the valís of Beirut, and who had despatched all the notables of the community several miles on the road to meet Him as He approached the town, accompanied by His brother and the Muftí of Akká, as well as the magnificent reception given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to that same Shaykh Yúsúf when the latter visited Him in Akká, were such as to arouse the envy of those who, only a few years before, had treated Him and His fellow-exiles with feelings compounded of condescension and scorn.
Does the Nautilus still exist? Is Captain Nemo still alive? Was that awful night in the Maelstrom his last, or is he still pursuing a terrible vengeance? Will the confessions of his life, which he told me he had written, and which the last survivor of his fellow-exiles was to cast into the sea in an air-tight case, ever be found?
He opened his eyes almost immediately, as he thought; but his morning nap had lasted half an hour; the dawn was already purple and violet in the sky, his companions had left his side, and the hum of voices and the sound of footsteps in and around the Station, told him that his fellow-exiles were already preparing to resume their journey.
Within a few days of their arrival, a banquet was given them by their compatriots; and from that hour, Foresti became the oracle and the consoler, the teacher, almoner, and chief of his fellow-exiles.
The poor French neutrals who were brought to Philadelphia from Nova Scotia, and landed penniless and despairing among strangers in tongue and religion, found in him a warm and untiring friend, through whose aid and sympathy their condition was rendered more comfortable than that of their fellow-exiles in other colonies.
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