whole of the hotter months. However it might be, neither plague nor war

could prevent Perdita from following her lord, or induce her to utter one

objection to the plans which he proposed. To be near him, to be loved by

him, to feel him again her own, was the limit of her desires. The object of

her life was to do him pleasure: it had been so before, but with a

difference. In past times, without thought or foresight she had made him

happy, being so herself, and in any question of choice, consulted her own

wishes, as being one with his. Now she sedulously put herself out of the

question, sacrificing even her anxiety for his health and welfare to her

resolve not to oppose any of his desires. Love of the Greek people,

appetite for glory, and hatred of the barbarian government under which he

had suffered even to the approach of death, stimulated him. He wished to

repay the kindness of the Athenians, to keep alive the splendid

associations connected with his name, and to eradicate from Europe a power

which, while every other nation advanced in civilization, stood still, a

monument of antique barbarism. Having effected the reunion of Raymond and

Perdita, I was eager to return to England; but his earnest request, added

to awakening curiosity, and an indefinable anxiety to behold the

catastrophe, now apparently at hand, in the long drawn history of Grecian

and Turkish warfare, induced me to consent to prolong until the autumn, the

period of my residence in Greece.

As soon as the health of Raymond was sufficiently re-established, he

prepared to join the Grecian camp, hear Kishan, a town of some importance,

situated to the east of the Hebrus; in which Perdita and Clara were to

remain until the event of the expected battle. We quitted Athens on the 2nd

229

The Last Man