He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled
to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and
secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed. His plans
were facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris.
"The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their
victim and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer. The
plot of Felix was quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were
thrown into prison. The news reached Felix and roused him from his
dream of pleasure. His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay
in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of
her whom he loved. This idea was torture to him. He quickly arranged
with the Turk that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity
for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a
boarder at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely Arabian,
he hastened to Paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the
law, hoping to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding.
"He did not succeed. They remained confined for five months before the
trial took place, the result of which deprived them of their fortune and
condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country.
"They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I
discovered them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for
whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on
discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin,
became a traitor to good feeling and honour and had quitted Italy with
his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him,
as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.
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