As he jumped into the waiting sledge and looked back over his shoulder
at the group of faces smiling in the lighted doorway, he burst into a
laugh, but it was the laugh of an embittered man, whose life had
crumbled to ruin at one blow. The Cossacks whipped up the horses, and
he was off on the long trail back, five thousand miles, every mile a
sign post of blasted hopes. Without a word of explanation or the
semblance of a trial on the false charge, he was banished out of St.
Petersburg on pain of death if he returned.
Ragged, destitute, the best years of his life gone, he reached London,
heartbroken. "I give up," he told the English friends, who had backed
him with money, and what was better than money--faith. "I give up,"
{262} he wrote Jefferson, who afterward had Lewis and Clark carry out
Ledyard's plans.
The men of the African Geographical Society in London tried to cheer
him. When could he set out to explore the source of the Nile for them?
"To-morrow," answered Ledyard, with the heedlessness of one who has
lost grip on life. The salary advanced paid off the moss-grown debts
of his disappointed past, but he never reached the scene of his new
venture.
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