"Ah!" said Ricardo, "I have asked myself that question more than once without obtaining a satisfactory answer to it.  I should like to do so, were it possible, for I am very heartily sick of the life that I am now leading.  There was a time when, soured and embittered by as cruel a wrong as man could inflict upon his fellow man, I believed that I could find consolation, if not actual happiness, in the wreaking of my vengeance upon every Englishman whom I could get into my power, or whose wealth I could take from him by force; but that time has long passed, the revenge which I believed would be so sweet has turned to dust and ashes in my mouth, and now I am so weary of life that the bullet or steel that should rid me of it would be more welcome than any other earthly thing.  When it is too late, I have begun to realise the full depth of my villainy, and to see what a contemptibly cowardly creature I have been in permitting myself to seek such an ignoble method of revenge as piracy.  But, as I said, it is now too late, yes, too late--"