He left
Sonora, and I lost sight of him. Retaining. a very kindly feeling for
this gentle-spirited and pleasant adventurer, I was loth thus to lose
all trace of him. Meeting a friend one day, on J Street, in the city of
Sacramento, he said:
"Your old friend D--is at the Golden Eagle hotel. You ought to go and
see him."
I went at once. Ascending to the third story, I found his room, and,
knocking at the door, a feeble voice bade me enter. I was shocked at the
spectacle that met my gaze. Propped in an armchair in the middle of the
room, wasted to a skeleton, and of a ghastly pallor, sat the unhappy
man. His eyes gleamed with an unnatural brightness, and his features
wore a look of intense suffering.
"You have come too late, sir," he said, before I had time to say a word.
"You can do me no good now. I have been sitting in this chair three
weeks. I could not live a minute in any other position, Hell could not
be worse than the tortures I have suffered! I thank you for coming to
see me, but you can do me no good--none, none!"
He paused, panting for breath; and then he continued, in a soliloquizing
way:
"I played the fool, making a joke of what was no joking matter. It is
too late.
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