118 LIFE IN JAVA.

been the victim. The Sultan readily took up the European's cause, granted him and his wife pro- tection, allowed them full liberty to trade, and in a few years the once destitute sailor became an influential man.

Whether this account be true, or whether, as others assert, he dragged on a weary existence as a captive, and died on the very slab to which he had been for so many years chained, it is im- possible now to say; but from the fact of the European characters inscribed on the stone, there can be no doubt that there is some truth in the tradition that a native of Europe had thus cruelly suffered.

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